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Free Adoptions: Do Fees Really Protect Animals? · The Animal Advocate

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  I used to think free adoptions were a terrible idea.
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  I bought into the theory that if someone can't afford an adoption fee,
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  how will they afford the vet bills? The fee was supposed
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  to be a filter proof that you were serious, that
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  you had resources, that this animal wouldn't end up
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  back at the shelter in a week, or worse, used as
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  a bait dog in a fighting ring. Turns out
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  I was wrong. Not completely wrong. The story is more
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  complicated than that, but wrong enough that I've
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  changed my position. And I want to walk you through not just
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  why I changed my mind, but also why I'm skeptical of
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  some of the research that advocates use to promote free adoptions,
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  because I think both sides are oversimplifying.
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  Welcome to the Animal Advocate, where we arm animal lovers
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  with the information and inspiration you need to become
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  effective advocates. I'm your host, Penny Ellison, and
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  I've taught animal law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania
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  since 2006. If you've ever thought
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  someone should do something about that, I'm here to guide you
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  on your journey to being that someone. You can
• 1:20
  find us on the web@animaladvocacyacademy.com
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  and that's where you'll find show notes and resources, and you can
• 1:28
  send us your comments on episod and ideas for topics you'd like
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  to hear on future shows. So onto today's
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  topic,
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  Let me start with a case I used to make. The logic seemed
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  airtight. Pet ownership is expensive. A
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  single emergency vet visit can easily run over $1,000 or
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  a lot more. Food, vaccines, flea
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  and tick prevention. It adds up. If the
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  adoption fee is a barrier, how will you handle the real
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  costs? There was also a fear, and you
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  hear this constantly in some rescue circles and especially online,
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  that free adoptions would attract the wrong people. Impulse
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  adopters who'd return the animal in a week or worse.
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  People looking for animals for dog fighting or as bait animals.
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  And there was a sort of value argument. If something is
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  free, people don't value it. Luxury brands
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  don't give away their products. The price creates perceived
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  worth. So I believed what a lot of people in animal
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  welfare still believe. The adoption fee protects
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  the animal. Then I got more
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  deeply involved in sheltering. I started running volunteer
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  sessions for Hand to Paw, a nonprofit that I ran at the
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  time. I just chair the board now that connects at risk
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  youth with shelter animals. I joined the board of the
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  Pennsylvania spca, and I started spending a lot of
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  time in different shelters, getting to know the animals and their
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  stories and watching what actually Happens. And
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  what I saw changed my thinking. I
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  found out that what happened in real life didn't match my
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  theory. I watched dogs sit for months,
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  good dogs, adoptable dogs, just waiting
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  day after day in a kennel. Stressed
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  and confused dogs that had no behavior
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  issues when they came in developed them from months or years of
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  confinement in a loud kennel. Wouldn't you?
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  At our local open intake shelter, the kind that has to
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  accept every animal. I saw adoptable dogs being
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  euthanized, not because they became aggressive or sick,
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  because there was just no more room. The shelter had to make
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  space for the next wave coming in. That
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  changes the calculation, doesn't it? We were so
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  worried about what might happen in a free adoption that
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  we weren't thinking about what was definitely happening to animals
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  who never got adopted at all.
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  Then I started watching what happened at fee waived
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  events. Long stay dogs, the ones passed over
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  for months, sometimes over a year,
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  finally went home. Families who might never have
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  walked through the shelter doors otherwise showed up. And some
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  genuinely great matches happened. One example,
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  Denham, a small black pity who came into the Pennsylvania
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  SPCA as a cruelty case. He sat in
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  a kennel for over two years when
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  a fee waived event called Pity Fest brought attention and
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  urgency. It was finally his turn to
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  go home. And the flood of returns I'd feared
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  didn't materialize. At this point, you
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  might expect me to point to the research and say, see, the data
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  backs me up. But that's not quite where I'm going.
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  If you look into this, you'll see that major animal welfare
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  organizations cite research showing fee waived adoptions
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  perform just as well as paid ones. A
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  2011 Maddie's Fund study found that 93% of
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  dogs and 95% of cats adopted during fee waived
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  events were still in their homes six to 12
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  months later. Similar results appear in studies from
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  Australia and Edmonton. The message from these
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  organizations is that the science is settled. I
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  don't think it is. I've changed my mind about fee waived
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  adoptions, but not because of this research.
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  I majored in math, so I pay close attention to how data is
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  gathered and how statistics are presented. And when you look
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  closely, these studies have some real weaknesses.
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  First, they rely on surveys,
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  questionnaires sent six to 18 months after adoption
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  compared to a control group. The problem is that
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  not everyone responds. Even in the Maddie's Fund
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  study, one of the better ones, the response rate was
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  57%. And who do you think is most likely
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  to respond? People whose adoptions went well
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  if the placement didn't work out. And the animal was rehomed or
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  surrendered elsewhere, you're far less likely to fill out a
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  survey. That's called survivorship bias.
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  The failures, or even the neutral outcomes tend to
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  disappear in the non responses. Those
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  headline numbers may not tell the full story.
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  Second, everything is self reported.
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  When surveys ask, is your pet still in the home or
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  have you taken your pet to the vet? Researchers are
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  trusting that people answer honestly. But people
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  know what the right answers are, especially when the
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  survey comes from the same organization that placed the animal.
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  None of these studies cross check responses against independent
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  data like licensing or microchip records.
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  And finally, the time frames are pretty short.
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  6 months, 12 months at the most. 18
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  months for a few responders. But pet ownership is
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  a 10 to 15 year commitment for dogs and maybe even longer for
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  cats. These studies can't tell us what happens years
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  later when novelty wears off or costs
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  rise. So what can we reasonably
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  conclude? Well, among adopters who
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  respond to surveys, outcomes look similar.
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  That's encouraging. It suggests fee waived adopters
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  aren't dramatically worse than adopters that come in on a normal day.
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  But it doesn't prove the outcomes are definitively the same.
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  The research is encouraging, but not conclusive.
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  I wish organizations promoting these studies were more upfront
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  about that. So if the research didn't change my
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  mind, what did? What I saw.
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  And the math. Shelters across the country
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  are overwhelmed. Intake is up.
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  Adoptions are flat or declining.
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  Animals are being euthanized not because they're dangerous, but
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  because there's just nowhere to put them
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  in that context. Getting animals into homes faster
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  isn't just nice, it's life saving.
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  Every adoption opens a kennel. It reduces the
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  harm of long shelter stays. It gives animals a chance
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  they might not otherwise get fee waived.
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  Events also generate attention. Local news
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  sometimes covers them. People who are on the fence
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  finally act and come in and adopt. And that's so important.
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  The ASPCA's Free Over 3 program, which
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  waived fees for cats over three years old, led to
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  a 226% increase in adoptions of those cats.
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  That's not marginal, that's transformative.
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  Here's what I've come to believe about this. The adoption
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  fee is not the filter that we thought it was.
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  A family's ability to pay $150 on a particular day,
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  or whatever the adoption fee is, it just doesn't predict
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  whether they'll be good pet owners. It doesn't measure love,
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  commitment or resilience. It just measures
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  Whether they have $150 right now, plenty of
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  wealthy people neglect their animals. Plenty of families with
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  modest incomes provide wonderful homes. The
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  fee filters for exactly one liquidity.
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  So I support fee waived or reduced fee adoption events, but
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  but only if everything else stays the same.
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  Waiving the fee should not mean abandoning the process.
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  You still have the conversation. You still talk about housing,
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  experience, expectations. You still work to make
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  a good match. You still document the adoption,
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  require id, counseling and a contract.
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  That matters because people with bad intentions don't want paper trails.
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  And you still provide post adoption support, a behavior helpline,
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  training resources, someone who can coach new owners through the
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  hard part. A lot of returns happen not because people are bad
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  owners, but because they hit a problem they don't know how to solve.
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  Give them somewhere to turn and many will work it out.
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  And when it can't be worked out, you take the pet
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  back. This is my big issue with some of those
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  mega adoption events where dogs are brought in from other states
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  for a huge mega event with low adoption fees.
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  It gets attention and brings in adopters, but
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  sometimes the local shelters hosting the event won't take those
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  animals back. They're considered adoptions from the originating
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  shelter, which might be hundreds of miles away. Then if
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  the adoptions don't work out, there's nowhere to return those
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  animals and they end up burdening the local system or as
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  strays, or both. Fee waived
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  adoptions work when they're part of a strong system. They
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  don't work as a gimmick to clear kennels.
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  Success isn't guaranteed by an adoption fee policy.
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  It's built one adoption at a time. I
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  changed my mind about fee waived adoptions not because the research proved
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  they're perfect, but because the feared harms haven't
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  materialized and the alternative is animals dying
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  in shelters or languishing for way too long.
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  The fee was never what protected animals the process
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  was. If you work in a shelter and have experience
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  with fee waived events, I'd love to hear from you. What's
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  worked, what hasn't? How does your community respond
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  and what do you wish more people understood?
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  That's it for today. The Animal Advocate Podcast is brought
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  to you by the Animal Advocacy Academy. You can find
• 12:44
  episodes and show
• 12:46
  notes@animaladvocacyacademy.com
• 12:49
  along with a link to our Facebook and LinkedIn pages where we
• 12:53
  discuss our podcasts and we'd love to discuss your thoughts and experiences
• 12:57
  there. If you're interested in learning more about protecting animals,
• 13:01
  subscribe to the show so you get every episode when it comes out.
• 13:06
  If you have any questions on this or any other topic related to animal
• 13:09
  law. Email them to
• 13:11
  podcastnimaladvocacyacademy.com
• 13:15
  and we'll make sure to get them answered. We'll either email you back
• 13:19
  or feature them in a future episode, or both.
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  And remember, compassion is great, but
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  compassionate action is infinitely better. Until
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  next week, Live With Compassion.