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How can understanding human behavior improve animal rescue efforts?

Writer's picture: Emily HollandEmily Holland

I was just having a conversation with another non-profit executive director and we were discussing how we must really get to the core of the problems in our community to move the needle on our very important missions. 


While our missions are vastly different social services, one common challenge that stood out to me was that both of our organizations' problems were deeply rooted in, yep, you guessed it…


People problems. We all have them right?


Animals don’t just admit them into the shelter. Well, sometimes they do just magically make their way to our doorstep, but almost all the time there is a human problem behind the need for an animal to come into the shelter.


So this got me to thinking, in order to solve our sheltering problems, we have to think of a way to solve a human problem.


You mean to make this problem for our beloved animals go away, we have to reach people?


I believe the answer is a resounding yes.


As daunting, unpredictable, and as overwhelming as that feels, we have to reach the people caring for the dogs and cats. The vast majority of animals coming into our shelter were once owned. And they were brought to the shelter because the human that owned them had a problem.


So….


My researcher hat went on at 1:00 am last night, and I started looking into the last three years of our shelter data.


Sidenote...I am incredibly thankful for an amazing staff that collects a great deal of dependable data.


I specifically wanted to identify the human problems that are resulting in so many animals being brought to the shelter, and this is what I found:



The leading reasons for both cats and dogs coming into the shelter are:


  • The owner has too many animals.

  • The owner experienced a lifestyle change that led them to the decision to give up their pet. 


The leading reason of having too many pets actually surprised me. We have been offering spay/neuter services in our community for many many years! No one should have a reason to have too many animals, right?  



Or are the people problems way deeper than access to affordable spay/neuter services?


Are YOU at all surprised by this data?


And the better question…


How do we reach and influence the people that feel so unreachable?


-Emily Holland, Executive Director 


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