Banfield Charitable Trust grant prevents pet surrenders at the shelter door
One pet owner arrives at the shelter with his dog who won’t stop barking and is causing neighbor complaints. Another pet owner has been unemployed for several months and can no longer afford food for her cat. Both are sad to be surrendering their pets to the shelter but feel they have no choice. The result is more over-crowding at shelters and the risk of euthanasia when pet owners don’t really want to give up their companions.
Banfield Charitable Trust (BCT) is committed to supporting programs that get at the root causes of surrender and recently awarded a $15,000 grant to the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA for its unique approach to help pet owners address issues such as behavioral problems and short-term financial challenges that ultimately work to keep pets in their homes.
"Pet retention programs work to slowly erode away the disposable pet philosophy and create a culture of responsible pet ownership and increased pet attachment." -- Executive Director Susanne Kogut
The Charlottesville-Albermarle SPCA Pet Retention Program has a proven track record of success, reducing the percentage of surrender pets from 28 percent to 18 percent between 2006 and 2009. The grant from BCT will allow the Charlottesville, Virginia-based organization to expand its assistance offerings.
“In the past and still even at many shelters today, pets taken to an animal shelter were and are simply accepted with no attempt to provide assistance to keep the pet in its home,” said Executive Director Susanne Kogut. “Consequently, by not working with owners and helping find solutions to enable them to keep their pets, animal shelter workers have contributed to and continue to contribute to the creation of a society where pets are viewed as disposable. Pet retention programs work to slowly erode away the disposable pet philosophy and create a culture of responsible pet ownership and increased pet attachment.”
How it works
People considering re-homing their pets speak with a pet retention specialist to identify why they want to surrender the pet and what attempts they’ve already made to keep them. If a person wants to surrender their pet because of a litter box problem, barking, destructive behavior or other behavior issues, the specialist can provide educational resources and tools.
Additional funding will allow the SPCA to provide increased support for a subsidized medical testing and treatment program and dog training support for the behavior assistance portion of the retention program. In 2010, the number of pets surrendered was 697. The goal is to reduce the number of surrendered pets by 100 in 2012. The SPCA estimates that each surrendered pet costs approximately $350 to care for and re-home.
“We believe because we have already reduced owner surrenders substantially—almost 50 percent in five years—further reductions will require a greater amount of assistance and resource allocated to each pet owner,” said Kogut. “This reduction will save the SPCA over $35,000 because it is much less expensive to work with the owners and their pets than to take the pets into the SPCA facility. More importantly, it will be better for the owners and their pets to maintain the pet family households.”
Charlottesville-Albermarle SPCA Pet Retention Program is one of 25 programs funded by BCT in its second grant cycle of 2011. Thanks to our generous donors, BCT supports unique solutions that address root causes of pet surrender in local communities across the country. Learn more about our grants programs.
