This is a question that I get asked regularly. People hear that you work with animals and envision puppy snuggles all day long. But unfortunately, that is not quite the case. Animal welfare is arguably one of the fields with highest level of compassion fatigue and burnout. There are so many ups and downs that happen in one day- so many emergencies, emotions and every staff member in every position is constantly hustling to get everything done. The pay isn't great, there is lots of pee and heartache, but at the end of the day, you leave knowing that you are making the world a better place. This blog will be taking you on a journey of the ups and downs of working in the animal welfare industry. To get you acquainted, I will be explaining a few areas of our organization to give you an idea of the various components of animal welfare.
Intake
Intake is the process of bringing pets into your care. Types of intake include owner surrenders (person can no longer keep their pet), stray (pet was found roaming), confiscate (law enforcement removes the pet from owner) and transfer (brought in from another organization, such as the local animal control shelter). Gateway Pets has experienced a large influx of intake requests and our intake has grown rapidly over the last four years. As you can see in the chart below, our intake doubled between 2019 and 2021. Our intake is a fairly equal spread between stray, transfer and owner surrender.
This increase in intake and intake demand is not unique to us. Shelters all across the United States are reporting being over capacity and unable to keep up with intake demands. This article from the Washington Post blames a combination of inflation, a struggling economy, poverty and housing issues as the culprit. Research from the University of Florida School of Medicine also points to a lack of spay/neuter surgery during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic as a reason for pet overpopulation and shelters being filled with homeless pets. My experience is that our increase in intake is a result of all of the above and the biggest reason we see people surrendering their pet is due to poverty and housing struggles.
Animal Care and Outcomes
Once dogs and cats enter our care, it is our responsibility to provide medical care, food and shelter until the pet can get into an adoptive home. Our shelter can comfortably house up to about 50 animals (25 dogs and 25 cats) but we often have around 200 pets in our care. We are able to provide care for this many pets at once thanks to foster homes. On an average month, we have about 225 individuals/families who open their home temporarily to a homeless animal. While managing a large foster program is very time and resource intensive, foster homes are so critical for us to be able to expand our intake and care capacity.
Our shelter has an in-house veterinary team which provides all medical care for intake pets. There is a veterinary shortage in the US, so we are very lucky to have dedicated veterinarians and vet techs for our shelter. While medications and veterinary salaries are not cheap, we save a lot of money and can increase our capacity by utilizing our in-house veterinary team vs. having to outsource to a private vet.
The ultimate goal for the pets in our care is to get a loving adoptive home as quickly as possible or to be reunited with their owner if they were found as a stray. Unfortunately, not all pets reach this goal and may end up in a humane euthanasia situation. Gateway Pets does not take euthanasia decisions lightly and we have a full euthanasia decision making and communication plan, which can be found here. Despite the fact that we do occasionally euthanize dogs and cats, our organization is categorized as "No Kill" since our current live outcome rate is 97%. Any live outcome or "save" rate over 90% is considered "No Kill". You can read more about "No Kill" definitions in this article from Best Friends Animal Society We are very proud to be at a "no kill" status and will always strive for saving as many dogs and cats as possible.
Diversion and Community Programming
By now you might be wondering if there is anything that can be done to slow down the intake demand and I have an answer for that - providing resources for pet owners! The biggest focus of Gateway Pets is to provide resources to pet owners so that they can keep their beloved pet. We purposely chose to operate out of and provide resources to residents in East St. Louis, IL and the surrounding area, as this area has been historically overlooked, under funded and under resourced. Prior to the opening of our pet resource center, there were no veterinary clinics, no pet supply stores and no groomers. In 2020, we opened our doors to the community to provide affordable pet food, pet supplies, grooming and veterinary care. We also go on weekly community outreach to work with pet owners who are struggling to provide solutions. Our goal is to continue to secure funding so that we can do the right thing- keeping pets with their families and keep them from entering the shelter system. We are a pioneer and innovator in this area and are hopeful that many other animal welfare organizations will begin implementing these community resource programs to begin to change the landscape of animal welfare.
Fundraising
Last but not least, is fundraising! Our organization is 100% funded by individual donors, grants and sponsoring corporations. At this time, we receive $0 from government/tax payer money and are always hustling and strategizing every day to secure funding. One of the many hats that I wear in my position is ensuring that the organization is financially stable so that we can continue to operate. Paying 25 employees, operating out of a large, old building (our building was previously an abandoned elementary school!) and providing low cost services is VERY expensive. In 2023, we are budgeted to spend about $2 million. 2021 was a huge growth year for us, as it was our first "real" year operating out of our facility, so we learned about how much money we needed to operate. 2022 was a big turnaround year for us and we came out nearly $200,000 in the green. Financial sustainability is a huge goal of mine and is certainly no easy task! Non-profit animal welfare agencies like us could not operate without the help of generous and kind supporters.
Soooo, there aren't any puppies??
Ok fine, sometimes I do get to play with puppies. I even included a photos below for proof. I hope that blog will be an insightful tool for you to really understand the life of working in animal welfare and why it's so important to have people like you involved. I hope throughout this journey, you might be inspired to foster, volunteer, adopt, donate or heck, just share our story. Check out out website at gatewaypets.org to see how you can get involved or enter your email address in the section below to subscribe to my blog. For now, I send you off with me with some cute puppy faces. :)
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