Once a stray animal comes in to the care of the county’s animal control, they have five days to get the pet home before it becomes a ward of the shelter.
A Johnson County Animal Control worker will check for a registered microchip. If they don’t find one, workers are getting the animal assessed immediately and lining up the options for the animal in case an owner does not step forward in the five-day time period to reclaim their pet.
Their efforts over the last decade have allowed the animal shelter to significantly reduce the amount of euthanasia’s performed at the shelter. Not a single animal has been euthanized by animal control as a result of overcrowding in the shelter in almost a decade.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryThe number of animals that have been euthanized at the Johnson County Animal Shelter has been slashed in recent years as animal control workers have revamped how they find pet owners, used more technology to help animals find a home, are in contact with more animal rescues and have implemented a firm policy against euthanizing animals at the request of a pet owner.
And some of the tactics they have used and perfected over the last decade have been studied by other animal shelters around the country.
“Our goal is to save animals, not put them down,” said Michael Delp, animal control director. “No one wants to put down animals.”
In 2008, Johnson County Animal Control took in 3,000 animals and euthanized 1,300. In 2018, the agency took in 1,300 animals and euthanized 71. All the animals that have been euthanized at Johnson County Animal Control since 2010 were due to medical reasons, violence or aggression, Delp said.
Euthanizing animals is taxing on animal control workers, and when Delp took over as the leader of the department in 2009, he vowed that the number of euthanasias would decrease under his leadership and he would start and enforce a tight policy against euthanizing animals at the owner’s request, Delp said.
“It is by far one of the most emotionally crushing things we have to do,” he said.
Pet owners have asked for a euthanasia because they were going on vacation, to seek revenge on a significant other or because the pet’s original owner had died and wanted the animal euthanized upon their death, Delp said.
Animal control has revamped how they find an animal’s owner, and the high rate with which animal control returns animals to their owners is one of the main reasons euthanasia rates have decreased over the last few years, Delp said.
Officers who catch an animal now automatically scan for a microchip to see if an animal’s owner can be found before the pet is ever taken to the shelter. Once an animal is at the shelter, those workers are checking again for a microchip to see if the owners can be found, he said.
Pet owners also have access to more microchip clinics offered by animal control which allows them an affordable place to register a microchip in their animals, which is the first line of defense in getting a lost animal home, Delp said.
A county ordinance also allows animal control workers to collect a $500 fine from pet owners whose animals were caught by animal control but were not spayed or neutered. The owner must agree to have the animal fixed or pay the fine, he said.
Shelter workers also have contact with more animal rescue groups that will agree to take care of animals that may be hard to place for adoption or have medical or emotional issues the shelter is not equipped to address, said Bethany Fulps, animal shelter manager.
Increased donations and fundraisers have also allowed shelter workers to spend more of the shelter’s money on medical care for animals that, in the past, would have been euthanized if the shelter did not have the money to pay a veterinarian to rehabilitate the animal if it was in pain or had other quality of life issues.
For example, a new fundraiser recently raised about $20,000 for the shelter’s emergency medical fund, and so many donations of food and paper goods come in that the shelter has not had to purchase those items out of its own budget for years.
“It is money out of my budget that I don’t have to spend,” Delp said.
Adoptions have also been handled differently.
Members of the public can fill out an application for any animal up for adoption at the shelter, but shelter workers are on a mission to find the best home for each animal. An adoption application may be denied for a specific animal, but that applicant might be guided to an animal that better suits their life situation, Fulps said.
“We are looking for the best possible placement for animals,” Fulps said.
That tactic has reduced the amount of adoptive owners who are surrendering their animals back to animal control, Delp said.
“We try to do as much background checking as possible,” he said.
Eventually, Delp would like the number of euthanasias completed by animal control to be none, he said.
“My long-term goal is to shut the shelter down,” Delp said.
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1,300: Number of animals euthanized at the Johnson County Animal Shelter in 2008.
71: Number of animals euthanized at the Johnson County Animal Shelter in 2018.
100: Number of animals sent to a rescue organization in 2008.
600: Number of animals sent to a rescue organization in 2018.
70: Number of animals returned to owners in 2008.
280: Number of animals returned to owners in 2018.
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