It's Maria's MutS and Stuff. What a great idea on I Art Radio.
Welcome to Maria's MutS and Stuff and with me today's the executive director, Stephanie
Fyler of Shelter Animals Count, the national database. So Stephanie, I'm very
intrigued and I can't wait to chat with you and thank you for making some
time today. Absolutely, we're thrilled to be here. Absolutely. So,
Okay, so let's talk about this. So, Shelter Animals Count. You've
been around for a long time. You're a neutral, independent nonprofit. What
exactly are you? I mean, I know, but let's tell my listeners
what are you? Yeah? Absolutely, So. We were founded in twenty
twelve when all of the national animal welfare organizations came together and identified the long
need for having animals sheltering data. We were operating a lot on assumptions and
estimates and guesses and anecdotal detail, and knew we needed some more fact based
insights, and so it was really a collaborative effort where everyone came together to
form this independent, neutral nonprofit organization solely focused on collecting animal sheltering statistics to
enchance and increased life saving God it. So now are there I mean,
obviously there's like a big group of like I saw, like the Humane Society,
the ASPCA, But do are you open to others like coming aboard or
is it just with these very specific large organizations. Yeah, that's a great
question. So these specific large organizations were who helped find, found and create
and also fund the organization. But we actually accept and try to get data
from all fourteen thousand animal shelter and rescue organizations both countries. And then also
we do now in early twenty twenty one, we started collecting services data for
community services. So that also allows human service providers who provide things like pet
food and crasis housing, et cetera, to also have the services that they
provide to animals counts for our own animals, right right. And then we
we're currently in all fifty US states, also US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico,
and we are expanding into Canada as well. Wow, that's incredible.
That is so cool. Yeah, so a lot of growth has happened in
the past few years for sure. Yeah. Yeah, so, and and
I'm sorry that I should know more about this, but that's why I'm so
happy to talk to you because you know, knowledge is power, you know,
and the more we know, the more we can help animals, you
know, in shelters. So the research that you do, do you release
information like I know, I became aware of you when with the latest information
about fewer dog transfers which than before, which we'll get to, but like
how often do you put information out there? Yeah, so we have we
deliver information in a variety of ways. On our website, we have interactive
dashboards that people anyone from the public can go on and short and filter by
species and here and organization types, et cetera. And those are updated monthly,
and then every quarter we release a quarterly report that compares that quarter or
year to date really compared to at least the past three years. Sometimes we
go back further and those are static reports based on the data we have at
that snapshot in time. And then throughout the year we also released other things
like species diving deeper into species and diving deeper into organization types and regions and
et cetera. But then we also started doing this year the more surveying of
shelters for things like with checks. So when for example, when we did
one of our actually our Q one report. We had noticed that the rate
of doggies in Asia had started to increase, and so we wanted to really
understand why, and so we surveyed our members to give us what was happening
in their individual organizations and try to understand if there were any differences between rural
and urban, any differences with different parts of the country, large for small
organizations, et cetera. And so all of those things we share throughout the
year, which also includes some of the data on transfers going down. Wow
wow wow, Okay, wow, that's really I mean, that's that's fascinating
and it's excellent because the bottom line is we want to get animals adopted.
So it's good that you are always releasing all of this information. And again,
it just kind of brings home because it really gets me so aggravated and
I'm sure you more than me when people say that shelter pets are damaged,
because we know that they're not. You know, they just happened to find
themselves there. So now the latest thing is that fewer dogs are being transferred,
and cat transfers have been pretty similar than they have been steady like the
past couple of years. Why do you think it's happening with dogs? Is
it because of the economy, Is it still like the pandemic that's sort of
I guess affecting adoptions, or I mean, is there a reason did you
find? Yeah, that's an interesting thing. I've been an animals sheltering probably
almost two decades now, and in my entire career it was always cats,
cats, cats. We have too many cats. Cats are most at risk,
right, and we've really seen the past few years is that completely flip
flap where cats are actually doing really well in shelters when it comes to their
outcomes and the balance with outcomes in and tapes, et cetera. Where dogs
we're seeing a very different experience. And so the transferation was kind of an
interesting one because we really saw in twenty nineteen pre pandemics. We have to
really look now almost five years ago and look at what was happening prior to
the pandemic, And in twenty nineteen we saw a complete balance of the number
of animals entering shelters, which is in the millions, compared to the number
of animals leaving was almost one for one. It was it was a complete
balance. There was not any animals leaving or sorry any animals staying behind.
Well, then the pandemic happens in twenty twenty, which we all know,
the communities rallied around their shelters and rescues and started without being the animals,
which is great, but also at that same time organizations either chose to or
were forced to close their operation or limit their operation because of mandates. So
what happened was we saw a temporary spike in adoptions, but then really what
started to become this imbalance of the animals within our systems. So in twenty
twenty we actually saw a positive trend where we had more animals leaving shelters than
were entering. And sometimes it's like, well, how is that possible?
It's because in January one, we don't start with zero animals. We started
with However, many animals were still in shelters from the year prior. So
in twenty twenty we saw that twtal shelter population decrease, which was great.
Then in twenty twenty one, oh I should also add in twenty twenty,
what happened when these brick and mortar shelters started to have to close or limit
their operation. Foster based Rescues largely came in and started to fill some of
that gap, and so the fosters started to fill up as the shelters were
starting to empty, and so in twenty twenty one, animals started coming in
more, and we started to feed more animals entering shelters than we're leaving,
and that's the any outcome. And then twenty twenty two we saw the same
thing happened. In twenty twenty three, we saw the same thing happened still.
But really what really caused a lot of this issue with the transfer system
is when rescues came in in twenty twenty and started bringing in a lot of
animals that would traditionally have gone into brick and mortar shelters. They build up
and because they functioned differently than brick and mortar shelters, they're usually lower volume,
higher touch process, usually longer stay, and sometimes by design, if
they're focusing on kavior medical issues, and they were not able to outcome them
at the rate that we needed for that transfer system, and so it created
this bottleneck, and that's all the next started at twenty twenty. We didn't
really feel it until twenty twenty one, and then it has now persisted into
year three following the pandemic, which is why the system has essentially felt for
dogs right right. And I mean I don't know. I don't know that.
I don't know if there is an answer, Is there an answer to
why? I mean, because I don't know. I just remember, like
when the pandemic happened, and it was a big thing like, oh,
you're going to be home, you're working from home, you know, adopt
a pet, adopt, adopt, and I felt like, oh, yay,
you know, and then I started to hear after that that people were
returning pets and whether it was because they couldn't afford it or they lost their
job as a result of the pandemic. I mean, I don't know,
is that part of the reasoning. I mean, I don't even, Like
I said, I don't know if there's an answer to it or or why.
But it's just I don't know, is there an answer? Yeah,
So that was one of the interesting things in twenty twenty one. There was
a headline that really just spread that people were surrendering their pets to shelters and
record number now that people were returning to the new normal, and that fortunately
was not supported by the data. Unfortunately, it's still the narrative we here
three years later, but were what we were seeing is that during in twenty
twenty one, in particular in twenty two for that matter, the number of
pets that were being surrendered actually did not increase. But what we were seeing
was that the reasons that they were surrendering them was shifting, and so they
were shifting more towards those economic based reasons. And you can also see generally
these trends follow what's happening in the communities. The shelters are always a magnifying
glass of what's happening to people in families and communities. And so where the
areas where there were rent tykes and unaffordable housing, and especially unaffordable pet friendly
housing and especially related to dogs in size and breed, those areas were definitely
impacted the most all during that time. We have to remember the the eviction
moratorium was lifted, right, so people found themselves now having to in a
lot of cases have find housing with pets that they were more secure previously.
And then a lot of time, really in the past couple of years,
a lot of landlords have changed housing policies to restrict more pet pet families than
they have previously or make it cost prohibitive, and so that was happening.
At the same time, our economy is doing what it's been doing the past
couple of years, and it's really been a perfect storm. But I will
say in twenty twenty three, what's really interesting is we have well, actually
really over the past three years, we started to see owner surrenders go down
and straight go up. And so it could be that because shelters are so
full and having to change their practices on policies on admitting new animals. There's
a theory that a lot of the stray increase are really not animals who have
pet or people who are looking for them. They're really not strays. They're
either being turned in and set them being told that they're strays to avoid waiting
lists or other things preventing them from entering a shelter through a traditional owner surrender
process, or they're truly stories that are picked up but their owner doesn't intend
to replace them, either because they don't think they can afford it, or
this is you know, it's just too much for what else they have gone
down. There's a whole host of possible reasons, but we do know that
true owner surrenders as they are identified today have been decreasing over the past three
years and they're now at the lowest and they've been, which is since the
pandemic, which is actually encouraging and great news. It is you know,
it isn't it is that they're one lens. If we truly do have an
increase of strays right that kind that help women, that actually further bottlenecks the
shelter system because now they're having to be held for a straight hold time sure
where they could be otherism moved through the process. So it's complicated and we
haven't yet fully identified the root cause, but it could be a variety of
these things. But in general, the fact that people are continuing and really
always have in recent years that we've been following this, continuing to be dedicated
to keeping their pets as part of their family and seeking out resources to be
able to keep them in the homes is all very great, true, true
and true. And I think you know, there are so many different I
mean, I just know many times that there's a you know, a pantry
food drive. It's also for pet food. It's not just for people or
you know, and I think a lot of communities do have the resources to
help people, so they can you know, you can hold on to your
apartment, and you can hold on to your pet as well, because pets
are family as we know. So what can people do? I mean,
I know they can definitely because your research is I mean, it's goal.
It's golden because you're right, I mean the fact, like that whole narrative
that I just I had said to you about animals being surrendered after the pandemic
even though it never really ended ended, You're right, It just I don't
know where that came from, but it it was almost like, oh,
yeah, I guess it's true when it really wasn't right. You know.
So, how can like someone who's listening right now and wants to help out?
Now I know you are a non profit, so they can definitely go
to Shelter Animals count dot org and they can make a donation, right that
would help? Like what else can people do if they want to get involved
and help? Absolutely so? And actually we are funded primarily through grants in
national organizations who who need the stated to do their work, and so what
I would really encourage people who want to do to help is to support their
local shelter. They do not need to donate to us at all. We
really encourage them to donate to the Boots from the ground. And really,
unfortunately the message is still the same. It's not new, and there's sometimes
people are disappointed that we don't have a new thing that we need we want
us to ask for. But the top four things that people can do are
adapt, foster, volunteer, and donate and that to all or any or
one organization that they feel really closely aligned with, because truly, every single
shelter is in crisis right now and they're struggling with more animals in their care
than they have been in more than five years, and with fewer staff,
fewer donations, fewer volunteers, and fewer fosters than ever. And so it's
really that perfect storm of everything going wrong at once, and the easiest way
to change that is through those four categories of adapt, foster, volunteer,
and donate. That's perfect. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much.
Thank you for all your knowledge and all your information, and keep doing what
you do. And I would love to talk to you again because you know
I'm fascinated with all of this information and and I know my listeners are as
well, So again, adopt, foster, volunteer, or donate very simple
things that anybody can do. So Stephanie Fyler, thank you so much.
From Shelter Animals Count, the National database. Thank you for all that you
do, and keep keep keep at it because we need you and we need
all of this information. So thank you, thank you. We're happy to
be here. And yeah, check out our website at Shelter Animals Count dot
org and you can dig into the information yourself and check out what's going on
in your own are yet