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July 31, 2012

This is a fairly new study published again by the folks at the ASPCAPro. The topic of this one is Why do adopters choose the particular animal they choose at a shelter?

The study asked 1,491 adopters seven questions to determine what it was about a particular pet that led them to choose that particular pet for adoption.

The most important factor for cat adoptions was "behavior with people"(27%). For dogs, Appearance was most important -- also at 27%. I would suspect this difference would be primarily because of the more variance in appearance among dogs than cats. Interestingly, kittens were more likely to be chosen based on their appearance than adult cats and more so than because of their behavior. There was less difference between puppies and dogs.

Another question was asked: "What did this pet do when you first met him or her?" In otherwords, what type of first impression did the pet make.

For Kittens, they were more likely to vocalize, and play, than approach or rub on. Again, the difference between dogs and puppies was not as major.

When listing what elements were important in determining adopt an animal the results were very interesting:

Kitten Adult Cat Puppy Adult Dog

Physical Appearance 63% 66% 77% 75%

Age 78% 64% 75% 66%

Behavior w/ People 69% 78% 74% 78%

Playfulness 67% 54% 64% 58%

Sex 44% 35% 45% 35%

Health 50% 51% 45% 49%

Energy Level 45% 44% 56% 56%

Behavior when by himself 26% 26% 34% 29%

Behavior toward other animals 19% 25% 27% 32%

Reco from staff or volunteer 13% 22% 16% 24%

Special adoption offer 2.2% 5.9% 2.9% 7%

Wanted to help animal 13% 21% 23% 24%

Adopters for cats and dogs note that more than 75% of the time the most important source of information about that animal came from a staff or volunteer, around 45% said from their cage card and 30-35% said from the internet. Information received was about health, behavior and prior life experiences (in that order).

Discussion thoughts:

- While adoptions specials may encourage adoption in general, they don't appear to have a huge influence on individual choice of animals.

- Dogs and cats approaching adopters was an important factor for adopters which suggests the importance of social greeting behavior in shelters. Teaching approach behaviors may help animals to become adopted.

-- Staff and volunteers are an extremely important source of information about animals -- way moreso than the internet -- proving the importance of customer service in shelters.

-- Interacting directly with a dog or cat is more important than seeing the pet behind a cage door. Providing areas and opportunities for adopters to spend time with pets outside of the kennel can be valuable.

-- Because appearance was so important in the adoption of puppies/kittens, shelter staff could benefit by providing potential adopters more emphasis on behaviors and personality to create a better match.

-- On a personal note, I was surprised at how low energy level scored in importance -- when it may very well be the most important factor in a good match for adopters -- particularly for dogs.

July 28, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, at a mayoral breakfast, a Sioux City, IA couple brought up the conversation of repealing the city's 4 year old breed ban. The Sioux City Journal published an editorial encouraging the council to no "go there". While the Journal opposed the ban back in 2008, and then again when it was discussed in 2010, but now says there has already been too much discussion over the subject and they should just move on.

And to no surprise of anyone, the distraction of limited resources has had a negative affect on public safety as well. The city passed the ban in late 2008 (late October/early November) and began enforcing the law in March of 2009. 2006 and 2007 numbers come from this article, 2008-2011 numbers I obtained via FOI request this week (thanks to the helpful folks in Sioux City who were very nice in pulling the data together for me). I have no explanation for why the 2008, 2009 and 2010 data is different in the numbers I got from the city vs what is in the article.

Dog bites by year (numbers in parenths are those by "pit bulls" -- second parenths is "all other" dogs).

2006 - 88

2007 - 115

2008 - 102 (20) (82)

2009 - 107 (13) (94)

2010 - 134 (13) (121)

2011 - 117 (5) (112)

While it appears that 'pit bull' bites have gone down some since they enacted the ban (culling a huge amount of the population of one type of dog will do that). However, the bites by all other breeds of dogs have increased pretty dramatically -- and some of the other breeds that have increased over that time are Boxers, American Bulldogs, German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers -- all bigger dogs that "pit bulls' typically are.

So in other words, the Sioux City Journal is wrong. The city council SHOULD revisit the breed ban, and repeal it; because they have an obligation to fixt the failures of the prior administration in the name of public safety. The law has failed. Fix it.

Meanwhile, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that while the law has been failing, there are a couple of folks who are celebrating the Sioux City Journal Editorial.

Pictured, to the left (you can click on it for a larger view) is the thread from dogsbite.org celebrating the Sioux City Journal Editorial. Dogsbite.org celebrating the "victory" should come as no surprise as public safety has never been their goal -- having once named now fired Dog Warden Tom Skeldon "Dog Warden of the Year" in 2008 after his jurisdiction had a 23% increase in dog bites. At this point, I think most people are catching onto the truth about dogsbite.org -- they are a hate group (and by group, I mean essentially one person), not a group promoting public safety.

But maybe even more telling are the comments by Council Bluffs Assistant City Attorney Don Bauermeiester who is taking credit for having talked to an Assistant City Attorney in Sioux City. According to Don:

"When contacted recently by former intern, now assistant city attorney, I directed him to dogsbite.org. Beleive me when I say that the asst city attorney in Sioux City understands pit bulls must be treated differently. lol".

Yes, I'm sure all of the the residents in Sioux City who are paying for the enforcement of the law while it decreases their public safety are laughing hysterically.

I should also note, the Bauermeister should be very familiar with the results of breed bans -- as the number of bites in his own city went up dramatically after enacting their breed ban in 2004.

So add Bauermeister to the small list of bozos who have no interest in promoting public safety - only in using his position to promote the slaughter of dogs that look like 'pit bulls' - and lol-ing while the animals die and public safety is compromised.

July 25, 2012

Below is the new volunteer video was put together to promote our volunteer program at KC Pet Project.

The video was actually put together by a Kansas City group Agenda BE -- a KC area organization that is out encouraging Kansas Citians to be more active in local charities. I think their program is a great idea and I'm glad they chose us to be a part of it.

The video is a short 2 1/2 minute look at what it's like to be a volunteer at KC Pet Project. Would love to get your thoughts on the new video. I think we're going to get a lot of use out of it.

July 24, 2012

last week, the community of North Beach, MD repealed its ban on pit bulls. The new ordinance prohibits "dangerous animals" but does not name 'pit bulls' among them.

Apparently the Calver County Animal Control -- which provides services to North Beach (a community of about 1800 people) -- refused to enforce the town's ban on pit bulls though pledges to cooperate in enforcing the revised ordinance.

July 22, 2012

Been really busy on a lot of things the past few weeks, and I had a computer meltdown, and so I've been HORRIBLE about the weekly roundups. So this week's is going to work a little different. I'm cleaning out my saved links this week and anything that seems interesting and still relevant from the past month or so I'm posting (there are a couple of recent items I'm saving for posts this coming week). Trying to get back on schedule...

Hobart, IN has decided against breed specific legislation in favor of legislation that puts responsibility on owners to properly care for and manage their dogs.

An Aurelia, IA couple finally reached a settlement with their community to allow them to keep their pit bull service dog. While the terms of the agreement are not announced, the couple's legal fees were over $25,000 -- a substantial amount for the couple or a small community like Aurelia.

Dangerous dog reports are up significantly in Leicestershire, UK. The UK has had a ban on four breeds of dogs since 1991....but public safety continues to not be improved.

Abuse Cases

Authorities have seized nearly 300 dogs, mostly pit bulls, from a hoarding situation in Montgomery County, TX that was acting as if it was a "no kill" shelter. Hoarding is not No Kill. No Kill is finding homes for them. Not hoarding and neglecting them. An ex employee called it "a living hell".

Cumberland County Animal Shelter went from killing 89% of all animals that came in to not euthanizing a single adoptable dog since November. I'm not sure how they're defining "adoptable", but even with a lax definition it is still a huge improvement.

West Valley, UT has formed an agreement with Best Friends Animal Society in hopes of moving that community closer to No Kill.

This is a great story about a group I think is really cool -- but Gretchen Meyer has formed a group called "Firecracker Dogs" to help high energy, mischievous dogs that find their way into shelters and often are the hardest to adopt out for shelters.

Baking cookies in your car -- this video made the rounds on the internet earlier this summer as a "heads up" to not leave your dogs in your car on hot days -- it's a very telling video, and I saw it first on Pound Dogs

- 14% of dogs had been lost in the past 5 years, (of which, 95% were recovered) and 15% of cats were lost (of which, 75% were recovered).

-- 50% of dogs and 33% of cats had been lost multiple times

-- 80% of dogs and 88% of cats were spayed or neutered (male dogs were less likely to be altered than female dogs). This would seem to be counter to common thinking that unaltered animals are more likely to run off than altered ones.

-- Not surprisingly, people with higher incomes and more education were MORE likely to alter their pets than people with lower incomes and less education -- further highlighting the need for targeted low-cost spay/neuter services.

-- There was no significant difference in likelihood of a pet being lost based on income or education

-- 49% of found dogs were found by searching their neighborhood, 20% came home on their own, 15% were contacted because they were wearing a tag or had a microchip, 7% were brought home by a neighbor and 6% by contacting animal control

-- 59% of cats were found because they returned home on their own, 30% were found by searching the neighborhood. Only 2% were returned home because they were wearing a tag or mcircochipped, and another 2% via contacting animal control.

-- For people who never found their lost dogs, 75% of searched their neighborhood, 75% visited the shelter, 50% hung posters, 50% put an ad in their paper, 50% posted online and 38% called their veterinarian (I will note that the sample size is very low for this since most people found their pets).

-- For people who never found their cats, 67% searched the neighborhood, 22% visited a shelter, 17% hung posters , 11% put an ad in the paper, 6% posted online and 11% called veterinarians (again, a fairly low sample size). The number of lost cat owners that never visited the shelter to look for the cat (and a verys small percent have any form of identification) is likely a reason that most shelters have strikingly low return-to-owner rates for cats.

-- People who made less than $50,000 a year were less likely to be reunited with their dogs than people in higher income brackets. For cats, low income (less than $30,000 and high income ($100,000+) were more likely to be reunited, where people between $30,000-100,000 were less likely to find them.

-- Women were more likely than men to be reunited with their dogs, but the opposite was true for cats.

-- While the numbers of unfound pets seem fairly low by these numbers, when you compare to the large numbers of owned pets in this country (86 million cats, 78 million dogs), this still means that roughly 2.2 million dogs are lost each year, and 2.6 million cats. Based on this, a large number of the animals that find their way into shelters across the nation are actually owned animals, not strays. And based on numbers of animals that are never found, this accounts for 110,000 dogs and 645,000 cats annually that are owned, but unable to be reunited with their owners.

I think the results of the study are interesting on a lot of levels. They support a lot of reasons for targeted low cost spay/neuter programs and the need for aggressive programs to encourage pet owners to put identifying tags and microchips on their pets (particularly for indoor cats, who do get lost). It also poses a pretty hefty task on shelters to try to be creative to create programs to help reunited cats to cat owners (which includes encouraging cat owners to come to the shelter to look for their lost cats.

There may be some sample bias in this survey, but I thik it does provide some good first data on the frequency of pets becoming lost, and then found again.

July 14, 2012

Earlier this week, a 40 year old man was killed by his own dog in the neighborhood of Avondale in Cincinnati.

Because the man was alone, there is little knowledge of what happened to lead up to the attack, but the man was apparently on a dialysis and had a device in his forearm that was ripped out causing a huge wound in his arm. The man, Ronald Brown, called 911 and said he was bitten and thought he was going to pass out -- but he bled to death by the time authorities arrived.

Authorities found "bags" of marajuana in the victim's home and the dog was shot by police as it was acting very aggressively toward them when they arrived.

The dog is being called an Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog -- a rare breed of dog that looks a lot like an American Bulldog/Mastiff mix that is often described as tenacious and aloof (aloof is a trait often sought in guarding breeds).

The story is tragic, as all fatal dog bite incidents are (although I note that dog bite-related fatalities are exceedingly rare -- with only 30 or so happening per year in a dog population that exceeds 70 million dogs -- so when someone says dog attack fatalities are one in a million, they're wrong, it's actually 1 in 2 million), but is interesting or a variety of reasons.

First, only a couple of months ago, the city of Cincinnati repealed its ban on 'pit bulls'. The dog in this story would not have been illegal under the city's ban -- which further indicates that if someone wants an aggressive dog, there are ALWAYS other breeds of dogs they can turn to to make aggressive if that is their desired intent.

Second, the neighborhood of Avondale is a rough neighborhood in Cincinnati. It was the area that had the race riots in the late 60s and like these areas in similar cities, have yet to recover from the violence during that period. In Avondale, 41% of residents live below the poverty line (nearly 3x the national average). Brown appears to have had enough Marajuana to have been selling it out of his home ("bags" would indicate more than what someone would have for personal use) and likely had the dog as a guard dog in his tough neighborhood and to protect his stash. Function of a dog is extremely important in analyzing dog bites because dogs that are owned for an aggressive function (like guarding) are more likely to inflict injuries than ones that are pets. '

Third, many of the breed haters out there are still insisting on calling the dog a "pit bull type" dog -- because noting factual information about dog breeds, and attacks, isn't their motivation. They seem more content to just skew their year-end data to try to convince people that different types of dogs are more aggressive than others so they can push their dog-killing agendas while ignoring the circumstances surrounding these rare attacks.

July 11, 2012

Lennox was taken from his home because he was declared to be illegal under the UK's ban on four breeds of dogs, including American Pit Bull Terriers.

Lennox's ownes fought for two years to save him -- saying that he was not a banned breed but an American Bulldog/Lab mix. But in the end, the government in Ireland sided with him being illegal, and we was killed, after 2 years alone in his holding cell.

Lennox's deathwas the worst kind of death. He wasn't in need of a home. In fact, he had loving, caring owners who fought for two years for him (after most would have given up hope). In addition to this, there were hundreds of people who stepped up to help, and even pay to tranport him to the United States to live out his years. There is no indication that he had behavioral issues that made him a threat to anyone. He wasn't guilty of even running loose.

At the end of the day, he was killed because of how he looked, and nothing more.

The world is angry at the Belfast government now, and justifiably so. The story has made international headlines. And people are angry that a loved and loving dog could be killed for no reason at all. I understand the anger. It is more than justified.

But once the shock of the government in Belfast ignoring pleas to spare Lennox's life have passed, I want people to understand something important in this case:

Lennox's story is not unique.

While Lennox's story has made the national headlines, and his owners waged a huge campaign to save him, Lennox's story plays out in communities throughout the United States daily. Daily in this country, because of a city's breed ban, a perfectly good, loving dog is taken from a home and killed for no reason at all: not to improve public safety, not because they don't have a home, dogs are killed simply because of the way they look; just like Lennox.

For all the passion that went behind Lennox, all of these other dogs deserve it too. The governments that continue to round them up and kill them needlessly -- like in Denver, Ontario, Miami, Overland Park, KS; Independence, MO; Springfield, MO; Council Bluffs, IA; Winnipeg and other communities throughout the country deserve the same passion against their breed-specific ordinances as the folks in Belfast. These dogs need our support too.

The channeled passion against Belfast made Lennox's story an international story -- and an embarrassment to many in Northern Ireland. If we harness the passion for dogs like Lennox, we do have the power to enact changes in ordinances like this throughout the country by making the stories of these dogs, the injustices against them, more public.

Lennox is one dog. A loved dog. A critical life like many others. But let's not let his death be in vain and let his story and face be the face of this same injustice elsewhere.

July 08, 2012

Last week, a new study was published out of Manitoba, Canada, about the effectiveness of breed-specific laws (BSL). And contrary to all of the other studies on the subject (which they acknowledge), this study says that BSL MAY work. Here is their conclusion:

“BSL may have resulted in a reduction of Dog Bite Injury Hospitalizations in Winnipeg, and appeared more effective in protecting those aged <20 years.”

So with great interest, I read the article. You can read the article here, in its entirety (it’s only about 7 pages) for yourself.

The study is a fairly detailed study of 16 jurisdictions with pit bull bans in Manitoba that covers the Dog Bite Injury Hospitalization (DBIH) rates before and after they enacted their pit bull bans. The study did take into account population changes and rated the injuries on a per 100,000 person basis. The study focused on DBIH because their premise was that ‘pit bulls’ cause more injury when they bite and this would be a better measure of public safety than just bites.

They did also measure for Rabies exposure tests to see if bites that broke the skin increased or decreased (although this included all potential rabies exposures, and not just dog bites). This information proves to be pretty useless however as they later note that only about 30% of all potential rabies exposures come from dogs while skunks are the primary carrier.

The test included mostly rural communities, but did also include the Provence’s 2 largest cities: Winnipeg (which has a breed ban that it enacted in 1990) and Brandon, which has no ban. Brandon was one of 15 communities without breed-specific laws that were used as a control group. All of the other communities were labeled as rural communities. The study covered the years 1984-2006.

Unfortunately, the way the results were published, was a bit, ahem, misleading.

For the most part, they grouped all of the cities with BSL and those without together to show results – the lone exceptions were the two urban communities (Brandon and Winnepeg) and two small northern cities: The Pas (which enacted a ban in 2005, the last year of the study) and the town of Flin Flon (which has no ban). The rest were all grouped together.

During the years studied, there were 838 total DBIH in Manitoba – a total of 36 per year – and a total of 3.19 per 100,000 people. Of those, 363 (43%) occurred in cities without breed bans, 417 (57%) occurred in cities that enacted breed bans during this time.

Now here is where the numbers start breaking down for the study.

If you look at the communities that enacted breed bans during this time, of the 417 total DBIH, 144 of them occurred prior to the city implementing their breed ban. Of those, 122 were in the cities of Winnipeg and The Pas (the only cities with bans listed individually). So of the other 14 communities studied, there were only a total of 22 DBIH before they passed the bans – so about 1.5 per community over the course of 7-22 year time frame. So we’re talking, on average, about one incident every ten years here for all the communities that are not the Pas or Winnipeg.

After the bans were enacted, there were a total of 331 DBIH – of those, 307 were in Winnipeg alone (the Pas has zero in its one year after the ban). So post bans, there were only 24 total DBIHs for the other 14 cities combined – again, a very low number over a range of 2-15 years.

So the sample size of the number of incidents in surrounding communities is VERY small. All of which of the communities were very rural (and this study confirmed what other studies have reported that major injuries are more likely to occur per 100,000 people in rural areas than in urban ones). Also, based on the types of dogs owned in many of these areas for working purposes, and based on Canadian dog bite fatality studies, most of these incidents likely involved Huskies or other sled-type dogs.

So given all of this, almost the only conclusions that can be drawn from the study itself is based on what happened in Winnipeg and The Pas (the two communities broken out separately).

But even The Pas is impossible to study, because it instituted its ban in 2005 – right before the last year of the study. In the 22 years prior to passing the ban, they had a total of 12 DBIH – so essentially one every two years. Then, in the one year after passing the ban, they had zero – which statistically was just as likely to happen prior to the ban as it was after the ban - -so not much can be gleaned from that.

So let’s look at Winnipeg.

In the 6 years prior to them passing their ban in 1990, they had 110 total DBIH – an average of 2.93 per 100,000 persons-years. In the 16 years following the ban, they had 307 total incidents – an average of 2.81 incidents per 100,000 persons-year.

So, in other words, in the 16 years after the ban they lowered their DBIH numbers an average of .12 incidents per 100,000 people – or one incident per 800,000 people – or, based on Winnipeg’s population of 660,000 that is a drop of less than one incident per year during a 16 year stretch when dog bites throughout the US and Canada have been dropping. (Interestingly, there is no comparision in this study of whether or not bites dropped in cities without BSL during the same time period).

Meanwhile, in Brandon (the only other “urban” city studied), for the entire 24 year study, they had a total of 24 DBIH (1 per year) and a incident rate of 2.5 per 100,000 persons-years – so lower than either period for Winnipeg.

The researchers in this case seem to get that they were having a tough time proving their hypothesis. From the discussion:

“When jurisdictions were used as their own controls in a pre-BSL versus post-BSL comparison of incidence of DBIH, no significant reduction in the period after BSL implementation was observed.” (Emphasis mine)

The researchers also noted other reasons for changes in DBIH numbers that they didn’t not account for in their study – in part due to the long-amount of time (23 years) included in the study:

“Longer periods under observation have the potential to be influenced by period effects or confounding factors such as changes in the number of pet dog populations, changes in the popularity and ubiquity of breeds, changes in the number of dog-owning households, parallel and related ordinances, and public safety education campaigns.”

The study also notes that there was absolutely no inclusion of DBIH by breed of dog involved in the incident – either before, or after the bans. So while it measures the impact of DBIH before and after a ban, it does not indicate, at all, if ANY of the incidents involved pit bulls. Pit bulls have not been a major factor in Canadian fatality figures as from 1990-2007, only 1 of the 28 dog attack fatalities in Canada involved a pit bull-type dog. So it is likely that very few of the incidents either before or after the ban involved the type of dog that was banned.

The media, of course, has picked up on the story, bending whatever data they want to to prove whatever opinion they already have – like this author who compares the bites per 1000 people for two different data-sets of cities to 'prove' her point, the 'pre' number included all 31 cities studied and the "post" number just the cities that passed BSL.

So, in short, the study – which reports to show that BSL has been effective in Manitoba, doesn’t.

- It doesn’t show a significant decrease in dog bite hospitalizations after a ban has taken place

- It doesn’t even indicate what number of incidents before or after a breed ban involved the banned breed

- Because of the extreme length of time for the study, it was not able to isolate out cultural differences in dog ownership that would influence the data in the study.

- And based on the low incidences of bites per 100,000 people (less than 4 in all cases), there appears to be no evidence to support that any of these jurisdictions had any type of dog bite problem in the first place.

UPDATED:

The National Canine Research Council has offered up their view of the study -- and again noted that about 90% of the total person-years covered in the study -- which essentially means that the study is a study about the effectiveness of the law in Winnipeg -- which, as noted above, showed no measurable decrease in hospitalizations before and after the enacting their breed ban. Thanks JM for the link.

July 06, 2012

Per Jodie Pries at Bless the Bullis, Lebanon, Ohio has repealed their breed-specific law with a unanimous vote. Their new law takes a breed-neutral aproach to declaring dogs dangerous based on behavior that is modeled after the state law. Their old ordinance was enacted in 1986.

Meanwhile, Allen Park, MI has also repealed their breed ban. The cold city law, passed only a few years ago, declared that all 'pit bulls' had to be killed immediately by the shelter -- and breed ID was determined solely by the shelter staff.

However, Allen Park is now joining four other cities to form the Downriver Central Control Animal Shelter. In order to make things easier for Animal Control, they wanted the five cities to all have uniform animal control laws, so Allen Park had to repeal their law. Said City Attorney Crhis Forsyth:

"The reason for the repeal is to comply with other cities, but your vicious animal ordinance will still allow you to enforce anything needed with pit bulls."

Indeed.

Congrats to two more cities that are moving forward without their breed-specific laws.