Seattle Humane: The Facts

When we launched a capital campaign to build our new Bellevue campus nearly ten years ago, we based the aspirational goal of reaching 10,000 adoptions a year within five years on the market needs and conditions at that time. Changes in animal welfare, trends in animal population across the country and evolving best practices have informed a revised approach that has been adopted in recent years. In addition, it became clear that we needed to adjust to create a healthy and humane flow of animals – the ambitiously high volume of pets on campus was incredibly taxing on the animals, staff and volunteers. The animals on campus were stressed and the staff experienced burnout, high turnover and compassion fatigue.

It is not uncommon for an organization to evolve to meet growing and unfulfilled needs in the community it serves. Seattle Humane is more than just an animal shelter, and we are no longer measuring success based purely on the number of adoptions we complete, but also on the lives we save through our veterinary medical center and the pets we keep from ever entering the shelter system through much-needed diversion programs and community services that keep pets happy and healthy at home.

Under current leadership, we are very clearly communicating to donors and volunteers the reasons behind the adjustment in our approach and goals, as well as the cost-savings in diverting pets out of the shelter system. This also increases our capacity to support shelter pets with the greatest needs and challenges.

Our focus on community support was validated during our recent Tuxes & Tails gala in September 2021, where the successful Fund-a-Need campaign was based entirely on our community programs., Our recently released Storyline also clearly outlines how we are adapting as an organization to better serve pets in the community, and not focusing on adoptions as a single benchmark for success.

The push to meet the goal of 10,000 adoptions within the first five years of opening our new state-of-the-art facility pushed staff and the animals in our care to the limit, putting significant stress on both pets and people. While adoptions peaked in our fiscal year 2018 with 7,066 adoptions, so did staff turnover. At the same time, the animal welfare landscape was changing. Seattle Humane recognized this and adjusted. We had the resources to respond and provide services and programs that extended beyond adoptions. 

We are now better aligned with our mission to promote the human-animal bond and save and serve pets in need. As we shared with the Seattle Times, when you look at the impact of our community programs combined with adoptions in 2019, we had 42,900 animal touches, providing care and service to pets and families through our Pet Food Bank, Pet Resource Center, Lifesaver Rescue, training, adoptions, intake and public spay/neuter programs.  

No, we are not moving away from adoptions. Increasing our focus on keeping pets happy and healthy at home does not mean we are stepping away from the important work we do in adoptions and transfers. For every pet that can stay in their loving home, we will have greater capacity to shelter and care for pets who need the most support, and adoptions will remain a core part of our operations at our Bellevue campus. 

There are many root causes why the landscape of animal welfare has changed significantly in the last several years, causing a dramatic shift toward supporting pet owners in the community.  

As we were building our world-class facility, major research was being conducted that helped animal welfare organizations better understand why people were rehoming or surrendering their pets.  

• Findings published in the Open Journal of Animal Sciences six years ago found that 46% of rehoming cases documented were related to the pets themselves, and 26% of those respondents said they could not afford medical care.  

• Pet owners making less than $50,000 a year were asked what might have helped them keep their pets, and 40% answered with free or low-cost vet care. Other services respondents felt would have helped included free or low-cost pet food, temporary pet care or boarding, assistance paying pet deposits for housing, and behavior training. 

• These findings were highlighted by the ASPCA, which a year prior had launched a Safety Net program in Los Angeles County that assisted in diverting 4,100 at-risk pets out of the shelter system. The ASPCA has distributed millions in grants to organizations in nearly every state to support similar diversion programs over the years. 

Taking a more community-focused approach to animal welfare, particularly in regard to diverting pets out of the shelter system, is supported by a number of other reputable organizations, including the National Animal Care & Control Association (NACA) and Best Friends Animal Society. 

Human Animal Support Services (HASS) is a collaborative effort facilitated by American Pets Alive! focused on keeping people and pets together. According to HASS, one-third of pets entering the shelter system are surrendered, many due to their families experiencing a crisis situation.  

A number of solutions proposed by HASS, NACA and the ASPCA to divert pets out of the shelter system already exist at Seattle Humane, and several were deployed near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many more animal welfare organizations began responding to increased demand for community support. 

Seattle Humane is fostering pets for people in crisis through our SPOT (Supporting Pet Owners in Transition) program, and our Home To Home program provides people with the tools to rehome their pets on their own. Our Community Medicine program is helping pet owners unable to afford costly veterinary care. For other emergency expenses, including advanced veterinary care, Seattle Humane is helping cover those costs through our Pet Owner Assistance Fund. 

To learn more about the services Seattle Humane is now offering to support people and their pets, visit our Support for Pet Owners page.  

Seattle Humane scaled back transfers in 2019 to address the impact of a high intake and adoption year in 2018 that left many employees feeling burned out and resulted in high turnover. Then the pandemic hit in early 2020. Two-thirds of Seattle Humane’s pet population comes from transfers from partner shelters in Washington and around the country, and the pandemic made it harder to access these pets. Out-of-state shelter partners bear the cost of these transfers, which have been more expensive to carry out due to travel restrictions implemented in response to COVID-19. 

The desire to adopt pets increased dramatically, and has remained steady, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this increased interest, many state partners have been able to facilitate more adoptions locally and we are receiving fewer transfer requests. Those same shelters have also implemented new programs that are improving their adoption rates, again resulting in fewer transfer requests. Like Seattle Humane, these shelters are also relying more on foster-based programs. 

There is strong competition among shelters with room for more animals when it comes to seeking transfers from overcrowded shelters elsewhere.  

Seattle Humane began ramping up out-of-state shelter transfers in late October 2020, including with shelter partners in Hawaii, where travel had been restricted for many months during the onset of the pandemic. 

Absolutely. Seattle Humane has a number of dogs in our care who are undergoing assessment and support to address behavioral issues that either resulted in their owners surrendering them to us, or are making it difficult to find suitable adopters. We have a talented behavioral team dedicated to ensuring the best outcome for hard-to-place dogs in our care. We give each individual pet the time and attention they need to be placed in a loving home. We do not euthanize animals for behavioral issues, except when they pose a threat to people or other animals, or face significant quality-of-life issues, and that means we have a number of dogs who have been in our care for many months.

Seattle Humane utilizes positive, dog-friendly methods for effective training of dogs and puppies. Evidence shows punishment-based methods of dog training – pinch, shock collars, yelling, hitting or scaring – actually increases aggression. Furthermore, this type of aggressive training can result in dogs no longer displaying warning signs that they are feeling threatened or agitated, so there is an even higher risk of a person sustaining a bite or other form of unanticipated aggression. Seattle Humane follows guidelines from organizations that include: The American Society for Veterinary Behavior, American Humane, the Certification for Professional Dog Trainers, and International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants.

Our response was necessary and quick. The COVID-19 pandemic hit just as we were launching a number of new community programs focused on keeping pets with the people who love them. The very clear need for these resources strengthened our resolve that this was where we needed to focus our energy – keeping pets out of the shelter system entirely.  

Some examples of the impact of our many programs – shared with the Seattle Times – include:   

• Our Pet Food Bank provides nearly a million meals each year to pets in the community. 
• Surrenders and returns were reduced by 62% from 2018 to 2020 by offering resources through our Pet Resource Center to support pet owners in need.  
• Through our Home To Home program alone, 855 pets were placed directly into new homes since the program began in early 2020. Those adoptions are not included in the figures quoted by the Seattle Times. This rehoming program lets pet owners choose the right fit for their pets, and avoids sheltering and adoption fees.
• Our Lifesaver Rescue program gave more than 13,000 at-risk animals another chance through transfer and transport services from 2018 through September 2021.  
• Over a thousand wellness exams have been performed through our new Community Medicine program since October 2020, offering low- or no-cost pet wellness care, vaccines and microchips, supporting families that might not otherwise have access to veterinary medicine.   
• Our Pet Owner Assistance Fund, which offers financial support to keep pets in loving homes, has helped nearly 500 families since its inception in July 2020. 
• Our SPOT (Supporting Pet Owners in Transition) temporary foster program launched in September 2020 and has supported 62 participants to-date. 

Seattle Humane recognized the need to offer more supports for pet owners ahead of the pandemic in 2020, and had started working to establish several programs the year before. We not only heard demand for these types of programs within our community, but also from national organizations focused on promoting the latest best practices in animal welfare. 

In 2018, we had two programs related to public veterinary care and reducing surrenders (public spay/neuter and Pet Project) that accounted for 4,034 animal touches. In 2019, that number rose to 5,410 as we started shifting focus and increasing resources to help people keep their pets happy and healthy at home. By September 2021, while still in the pandemic, we had expanded to seven programs accounting for 4,651 animal touches. These new programs were launched during the pandemic: Home To Home, Community Medicine, SPOT temporary foster and the Pet Owner Assistance Fund. These numbers do not include the thousands of pets we continue to support monthly through the Pet Food Bank. 

Inability to physically and/or financially access veterinary care contributes to a high rate of pet surrenders to shelters across the country. Improving pet health in the region is one of the pillars in our five-year strategic vision, and it builds on the incredible work we’ve been doing for years through public spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations and microchipping. Our recently established Wellness Clinic and dedicated Community Medicine Veterinarian have enhanced the amount of support we can offer pet owners in need, and we will continue bringing this veterinary care out into the community and meeting people and their pets where they are. 

Our veterinary medical center is also a high-volume teaching hospital that provides a training program to students through a partnership with Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. 

Seattle Humane’s veterinary clinic is experiencing the same staffing shortage other nonprofit and private vet clinics are facing across the country. We are not only working with WSU to recruit incoming vets, veterinary technicians and veterinary assistants, we are also collaborating with PIMA Medical Institute to attract more talent into this in-demand career field. We offer a Shelter Medicine & Surgery Veterinary Internship – one of only 16 in the country – and have had more than 350 veterinary students complete a rotation at the shelter since 2014 through our training program partnership with WSU. 

Seattle Humane also strives to provide a competitive wage and is encouraging people both inside and outside the organization to pursue a career in veterinary medicine by providing a tuition reimbursement program that helps them obtain the necessary skills.  

Absolutely. It is because of the strong and continued support of our Board of Directors and our donor community embracing this evolution that we are able to fill this service gap. Their support gives us the resources to expand our focus beyond simply facilitating adoptions and position this world-class facility to serve its greatest and best use.

Costs are higher to run our new state-of-the-art building, but that is to be expected and the benefits of the new building for the pets and our community are vast.   Any organization operating a new facility with a larger footprint, more employees, competitive wages and more advanced equipment is going to have higher costs than previously experienced in a substandard building. While some of these factors make our adoption costs appear higher than other shelters, another big part of the equation is that there is no uniformity in how costs are reported among shelters.  

Seattle Humane’s adoption services expenses as noted by the Seattle Times include all activities that support adoptions, including: veterinary care for shelter animals, intake of animals from the community, behavior assessment and modification work, foster home placement and management, onsite animal care, and adoption placement services. In addition, the new facility has added depreciation to our operating costs, and we have hired additional staff over the years and increased pay in line with market requirements.  

We applaud our shelter partners for their amazing work, and there should be no competition in a lifesaving field such as ours – only collaboration and support to best serve the animals who need us. 

This report was an assessment of our facility and protocols with a goal to better align with our mission of saving and serving pets. Previous Seattle Humane management commissioned this report as part of that discovery process. This internal report from 2019 was intended to help us make improvements. Contrary to the Seattle Times reporting, neither the board nor the management team authorized the release of this internal report to the public. 

The ISD provided a thorough assessment and found areas where we could improve our facility and operations. We have implemented a number of those recommendations since 2019 and continue adapting to shelter best practices. One of those recommendations was to increase kennel space using guillotine doors, which we accomplished using an ASPCA grant, effectively doubling housing space.   

Based on incidents in the past, Seattle Humane has also increased communication and transparency around euthanasia decisions. Three signatures are required from leadership to take such action, and this step only takes place after a team of medical and behavioral experts has discussed the individual animal.   

Seattle Humane does not euthanize animals due to lack of space or length of stay and we have maintained an extremely high save rate over many years. Our save rate is currently more than 99%, which is one of the best in the country and far higher than the national average of 68%. 

Seattle Humane is proud to have maintained an extremely high save rate over many years. Our save rate is currently more than 99%, which is one of the best in the country and far higher than the national average of 68%.

The data we provide to Shelter Animals Count, a national nonprofit organization that collects sheltered animal statistics and monitors trends with shelter pets, does not include any information about services for pets that are publicly-owned and not surrendered to the shelter. Seattle Humane has focused on the Asilomar Live Release Rate (which we call our save rate) as it pertains to shelter-owned animals. 

Yes. As we shared with the Seattle Times, the public data represented for Seattle Humane in the Shelter Animals Count reports is accurate. It does not include statistics for publicly owned animals where we performed a humane procedure at the owner’s request.  

Our standard practice has been to report shelter animal euthanasia outcome data to Shelter Animals Count, as an organization that gathers data on shelter animals. Other organizations may choose to report their data differently, as there are no standards or guidelines in place for this voluntary reporting.  

We acknowledge that euthanasia is a very sensitive subject, but these decisions are part of our reality in animal welfare. The situation from 2019 referred to by the Seattle Times was very difficult for all involved. The euthanasia approval process at Seattle Humane has remained consistent over many years. For all cases that aren’t near death, three signatures have always been required for euthanasia to be approved (for near death cases, only a Seattle Humane veterinarian signature is required in order to immediately alleviate suffering).   

• For behavior euthanasias, both the recommendation for euthanasia and one of approval signatures must be from the head of our behavior department.   
• For medical euthanasias, both the euthanasia recommendation and initial signature must be from a Seattle Humane veterinarian.   
• The remaining two required signatures must be from leadership representatives that are from different departments from each other and from the initial department that recommended euthanasia.   

We do not euthanize animals for behavioral issues, except when they pose a threat to people or other animals, or face significant quality-of-life issues.   

What has changed since 2019 is the way we communicate about euthanasia decisions and reasoning. This information now goes out via email to all staff members for every euthanasia of a shelter pet. The same information goes out to all volunteers who have chosen to opt in to receive these notifications. We believe it is important to be transparent and speak honestly about the difficult and emotionally taxing aspects of shelter work.

Under the new leadership of CEO Christopher Ross, Seattle Humane is working diligently to build and maintain a culture of compassion, collaboration, listening, and sharing and we are addressing issues that arise so they are not repeated. We are incredibly hopeful about Seattle Humane’s promising future. 

We acknowledge we have faced our share of challenges and growing pains over the past several years. It’s undeniable and unfortunate there was a lack of leadership at the CEO level until 2019 and this negatively affected the entire organization. An Interim CEO joined Seattle Humane following the resignation of our CEO in 2019 and focused on stabilizing the organization and addressing morale and burnout. Effective new processes, channels for communication and staff support services were implemented, and that work continues today. In fact, we currently have the lowest level of turnover the organization has experienced in many years.   

We also recently implemented market-rate adjustments in pay, are creating a more robust employee and volunteer engagement survey, regularly scheduled volunteer roundtables, and have started an internal staff support group to help with compassion fatigue that directly affects our industry.  

Yes. Any and all complaints made through the appropriate HR channels were, and continue to be, taken seriously and addressed accordingly. Seattle Humane stands behind our current staff and leadership. 

It is not uncommon for an organization to experience challenges during times of great transition, which we experienced as we grew into our new physical space several years ago and staff attempted to meet the unrealistic goals we set for ourselves.  

We saw a 10% spike in turnover during our first full year in our new facility, which coincided with burnout from a banner adoption year in 2018. We began scaling back transfers and focusing on improving working conditions in 2019, following the exit of our longtime CEO. We are proud to say that working conditions are improving, and that our 2021 employee turnover rate is currently at the lowest level it’s been in more than six years. 

Three weeks ago we released our five-year strategic vision detailing future plans for Seattle Humane as an organization. We are developing the operating plans and are set to begin implementing this strategic vision in summer 2022. We are well positioned with the resources to address the greatest needs of the pets in our community and the people who love them through new programs. Our goal is to lift the entire animal welfare community up together and create the best possible world for the pets in our collective care.