Pawmetto Lifeline seeks to reduce kill rate at Columbia animal shelter (+ video)

More than half of the thousands of homeless animals that enter Columbia’s city-run animal shelter each year do not make it out alive.

A proposal from a local no-kill shelter to the city hopes to establish strategies to change that – to further the goal of making the Midlands a no-kill community.

Pawmetto Lifeline has proposed a memorandum of understanding to City Council that would formalize the relationship between the 16-year-old nonprofit shelter and the Columbia shelter. The agreement would not privatize the city’s shelter or form a public-private financial partnership.

The two shelters already have a working relationship, with Pawmetto pulling hundreds of animals from the city shelter into its own care each year.

Now Pawmetto wants to establish in writing recommended practices for Columbia’s shelter operation and the care of animals taken into the shelter to help decrease its nearly 60 percent euthanasia rate. The goal is to get the city shelter down to a 10 percent or less euthanasia rate within, ideally, two or three years, Pawmetto CEO Denise Wilkinson said.

“And it doesn’t matter who you are – if you care about companion pets and you care about the community, that’s somewhat upsetting, and we want to change that. We want to help the city get to where we know they can be,” Wilkinson said.

Marli Drum, superintendent of animal services for the city, declined to comment this week on Pawmetto’s proposal to the city or on the shelter’s practices.

Between July 2014 and June 2015, 9,174 animals were taken into the Columbia shelter. Of those, 5,253 were euthanized; 2,086 were sent to various rescue and adoption agencies; 1,097 were adopted; and 559 were returned to their owners.

Both intakes and euthanizations were down by about 1,000 from the previous year, thanks largely to ongoing spay and neuter efforts in the community, Drum said. The city’s euthanasia rate dropped from 61 percent to 57 percent in a year.

Some of the practices Pawmetto would like to help formalize at the Columbia shelter, Wilkinson said, include:

▪ Vaccinate all animals within 15 minutes of arrival at the shelter to limit the number of illnesses that spread through the shelter and illnesses Pawmetto could deal with when it pulls animals from the shelter into its care.

▪ Follow particular cleaning protocols for facilities. For instance, Wilkinson said, a special cleaning solution is to be used if a room is exposed to parvovirus.

▪ Don’t spend money to duplicate programs that are offered by Pawmetto and other nonprofits, such as rescue facilitation. Rather, Wilkinson said, invest those resources in the shelter’s adoption program or other programs.

▪ Do not euthanize any animals Pawmetto wants to pull into its own care without communicating with Pawmetto, even if an animal becomes ill before it is transferred.

“If you have limited financial resources ... if we’re willing to take that dog or that cat, and we’re willing to pay for all the services at no cost to the city, then let us have that animal,” Wilkinson said. “That’s another animal you don’t have to worry about or take care of or euthanize.”

Limited space and limited financial resources force the city shelter to put down many of its animals, Wilkinson said.

The Columbia shelter, located off Shop Road, receives public funding from both the city and Richland County governments. The shelter is owned and operated by the city, and it contracts with the county to hold its animals.

Privatizing the Columbia shelter isn’t something city leaders appear interested in, City Councilman Brian DeQuincey Newman said. But, he said, decreasing the shelter’s euthanasia rate and working toward becoming a no-kill community is.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Newman said.

City Council will consider the proposed memorandum of understanding on Tuesday.

Pawmetto moved into its Bower Parkway facility built with both private donations and public funding from Richland and Lexington counties in 2012.

Pawmetto is a private, closed-admissions shelter that currently cares for about 400 animals, including about 100 living in foster homes. It is dedicated to being a no-kill organization, Wilkinson said. Another nonprofit, no-kill rescue and adoption organization, Pets Inc., shares a similar mission in the Midlands.

“It’s bad enough to be homeless; it’s worse if it comes with a death sentence,” Wilkinson said. “We don’t think pets should die just because they’re homeless, especially when other communities have shown us that they don’t have to.”

For instance, the Charleston Animal Society, a public-private partnership, takes in more than 90 percent of the animals in Charleston County and has a live-release rate of more than 90 percent of the animals that come into the shelter.

“The most important thing that defines a no-kill community is that every healthy and every treatable animal is saved,” said Joe Elmore, CEO of the Charleston Animal Society. “And it’s costly.”

Pawmetto’s $3.7 million annual budget relies entirely on service fees and fundraising without any public money. Adoption fees are higher at Pawmetto than at the Columbia shelter, but Pawmetto’s adoption rate is double the rate of the city shelter, Wilkinson said.

Pawmetto spends more than $1 million a year providing services for animals from the Columbia shelter and the Lexington County public shelter, Wilkinson said. Last year, she said, Pawmetto pulled 3,200 animals from those shelters into its own care.

“We have a good relationship with the city, but if we stop providing services to the city tomorrow, their euthanasia rate would go up to 77 percent,” Wilkinson said.

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 7:59 PM with the headline "Pawmetto Lifeline seeks to reduce kill rate at Columbia animal shelter (+ video)."