Animal Shelter Statistics - Sept-Dec 2006

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Orange County Animal Services 501 W. Franklin St, Suite 106, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 (919) 968-2287 Animal Disposition Summary Report: September –December 2006 February 14th, 2007 Due to staff vacancies, it has not been possible to produce and post our regular monthly reports in the last four months of 2006. Integral to the monthly report is a set of statistical tables that include the disposition of animals at Orange County’s Animal Shelter as well as intake numbers and numbers regarding rabies cases and vaccinations. As a result of one staff vacancy, it was necessary to recreate our ability to produce statistical table concerning animal intakes and dispositions, a task staff diligently worked toward and accomplished toward the end of the year. While performing their regular duties, they worked with others to reproduce and validate the process for generating shelter statistics, using the same tools and methods that we previously used for this purpose. Below please find our standard statistical reports for the months of September, October, November and December of 2006. These are exactly the same statistical reports as appear in monthly reports for the previous months of 2006 and the months of 2005 for which these monthly reports were produced and posted on our website. All that is different is that these reports are presented without accompanying narrative, essentially due to our more limited human resources as a result of two staff vacancies we are in the process of filling. With regard to our sheltering activities and their effective administration, these statistics remain as important in the present as they have been in the past. They assist us in identifying and tracking trends of note, and they enable us to communicate openly and easily with stakeholders, partners, and the general public about our operations and activities. For the months about which we are reporting, there is generally an increase in the number of animals admitted to the shelter by comparison with the same months of the previous year. By comparison with the preceding year, there is also a decline in the number of adoptions and the total number of “live releases” (consisting of not only adoptions but animals transferred to other organizations and ones recovered by their owners and custodians). While these declines may well be affected by increased admissions, they are attributable to other factors as well in the complex processes that affect animal dispositions as well as pet demographics. We thus want to reflect upon possible reasons for changes in the number of adoptions and ”live releases” as well as inventory the initiatives that we have taken to ensure that we are placing as many healthy and behaviorally sound animals as we possibly can. While each of these subjects is addressed in the following sections, what should be said here is that our initiative are closely related to our monitoring of our sheltering activities on the basis of the statistics presented herein. Initiatives have been taken to ensure that we can and do continue to place as many healthy and behaviorally sound animals as possible given our core responsibilities, available resources and the dynamics of pet overpopulation here as well as elsewhere. As always, such initiatives as well as our