Latest / The Animal Advocate / Inside 150+ Animal Shelters: Cara Achterberg on Rising Euthanasia Rates and Solutions

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Inside 150+ Animal Shelters: Cara Achterberg on Rising Euthanasia Rates and Solutions · The Animal Advocate

0:00
Welcome back to The Animal Advocate. Today, we're
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trying something new, our first interview episode.
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I mentioned last time that we'd be talking with people doing remarkable
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work in this space, people whose stories might spark
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ideas for your own advocacy journey. I'm
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excited to introduce you to Kara Achterberg,
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cofounder of Who Will Let the Dogs Out, which is also the
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title of her new book. And what makes Cara's
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work interesting isn't that she runs a shelter or
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rescue. She doesn't. Instead, she's a
0:37
witness and a storyteller. Who Will Let the Dogs
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Out visits shelters, more than a 50 so
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far, to observe their reality firsthand?
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The physical spaces, the community context, the
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people doing the work, and the everyday challenges they
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face. But here's what really matters. Cara
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doesn't just see these places. She helps others see
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them too. Many animal lovers wanna help shelter
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animals, but they've never stepped inside a shelter. They
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haven't experienced the sights, sounds, and feelings of
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these spaces, and Cara bridges that gap.
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In our conversation, Cara introduces concepts that might be
1:21
new to some listeners, like managed intake and
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community sheltering. These approaches were designed to
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move facilities closer to no kill status. What's
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interesting is how these terms carry different meanings to different
1:35
people, and sometimes implementation
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doesn't deliver on the promised results. She also talks
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about how shelter euthanasia rates for dogs are rising
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after decades of progress, highlighting why our advocacy
1:50
work is so important right now. She's based in Virginia
1:55
and has focused primarily on Southern shelters where
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resources are often especially limited. Her organization's
2:02
purpose aligns perfectly with what we explore on this podcast,
2:06
connecting animal lovers with the actual on the ground needs
2:10
and empowering them to participate in meaningful change.
2:17
Welcome to the animal advocate, where we arm animal
2:21
lovers with the information and inspiration you need to become
2:24
effective advocates. I'm your host, Penny Ellison, and
2:28
I've taught animal law and advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania
2:32
since 02/2006. If you've ever thought
2:36
someone should do something about that, I'm here to guide you
2:39
on your journey to being that someone. You can
2:43
find us on the web at
2:44
animaladvocacyacademy.com. And that's where
2:48
you'll find show notes and resources, and you can send us your comments
2:52
on episodes and ideas for topics you'd like to hear on future
2:56
shows. So on to today's topic.
3:05
Welcome, Cara. Thanks, Penny. I'm happy to be here.
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Can you tell me what inspired you to start Who Will Let the Dogs Out?
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Yeah. I'll try to do it succinctly because it's kind of a long story. For
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many years, I was a writer, and I started fostering dogs after losing a down
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this path and down this path and wrote about it because I'm a writer,
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wrote a blog about it, wrote a book about fostering, went out
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to promote that book, and went to the shelters in the
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South. And I went there because I was going down to do book signings anyway
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in these towns, and I was like, oh, my dogs all come from there. I
3:49
think I wanna go see them. I'll take donations. And so I told everybody
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I knew, I was doing this, and I said, if you have stuff you wanna
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send to the shelters, give it to me. So I had so much stuff, I
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had to rent a big truck and then draft a friend to go with me
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because I was nervous about driving it. And she and I went off on this
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adventure that I thought was gonna be so much fun. And then I
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went to my very first shelter in North Carolina, and
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I was stunned by the situation. I was stunned
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that, you know, you walked in and it just it the smell,
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not just of the animals and the disinfectant and but almost
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like desperation. Just it it was just so hard. It was a small
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shelter. They had taken in 500 dogs that was it
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500 or something? I'm trying to get my numbers right because it's been so many
4:34
years. But anyway and they had only adopted out a handful. And
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so doing the math on that and trying to figure out what what else will
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you do, you know, and that that was a little bit of a shock for
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me. And the fact that the animals lived outside, the dogs lived
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outside in a very humid climate, eighty percent of the dogs were
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heartworm positive. They didn't have anything. And
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I I was, like, taken back. I was in shock that
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I'd fostered over a hundred dogs by then, and I had no idea. This is
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true. Running from that shelter? No. From all over the South, but some from that
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shelter, yes. And I was just sort of I was just ashamed that I didn't
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know. How could I not know? I was all about this, you know, we're all
5:13
gonna save all these dogs. And then I get down there, and they have nothing.
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They have, you know, a budget that barely covers food. They
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have no money really for spay and neuter. Obviously, no money for heart room
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preventative. No. Those were basics, and I was shocked.
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And from there, I went to 13 other shelters on that tour, some
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better, some worse, and came home
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furious that I didn't you know, furious about the situation and that,
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how can this be going on in our country? How can there be dog pounds?
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How can that happen? So I started going and traveling back again and again. I
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took a photographer friend because too few people read. And I was
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writing my heart out, but not feeling like I was getting the message. And so
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I took a photographer friend, and we did it. We traveled down two more times
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and finally said, you know, we need more than this. We need a bigger microphone.
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We need more people behind this. And so we
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started Who Will Let the Dogs Out with a mission to raise awareness and resources
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for homeless dogs and the heroes who fight for them. And it's been,
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it'll be six years this year. So it's been a journey. Things have changed, some
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for the better and some for the worse in the shelters. Let's
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talk about that. Because you've been trying to make a difference for six years. It's
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been you know, the pandemic interfered, I'm sure. How do you
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see things changing since you've been involved in going to shelters?
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You know, when we went down in 02/2019 and even very
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early 02/2020, you know, everybody seemed to be making some progress. You
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know, rescues were having a big impact. Transports were really changing
6:43
things. Everybody was working really hard, and
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it felt like the numbers were getting a little bit better every
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year. The very first trip in 02/2020, I felt like things
6:54
were getting better. And I heard I was at a shelter, in fact, one of
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my favorite shelters in South Carolina that's headed by a vet who's
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done a phenomenal job there. I wrote about her in my book. She used a
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term I hadn't heard before. She said, manage our intake. I asked her, how did
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you bring your shelter from killing sixty percent of the dogs when she took
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the job to, you know, less than ten percent? You know, in six months,
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really. Wow. That's an incredible turnaround. It was an incredible
7:19
turnaround. And and when I asked her, how did you do that? She said, well,
7:22
first off, we just stopped killing dogs. And that was really a powerful statement I've
7:26
thought about for years now. And it really is a mindset. As she said,
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you when you take it off the table, you'll find other options. And so she
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taught me a lot about being transparent with staff, with community, with
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everybody so we all are on the same page. We all know what's happening.
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But she also talked about doing managed intake, and I was like, what's that? I've
7:44
never heard of this. And at the time, managed intake meant
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scheduled intake, basically. But open intake shelter, they have to take
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surrenders? But they have to make an appointment to do that. And
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then I heard again from another shelter director on that
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tour, animal control officer, and she said, well, we are
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an open intake shelter. But if you come in here and you're bringing an aggressive
8:06
dog that you can't handle, we're gonna say to you,
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take that dog to your vet and have it euthanized. That is the most humane
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thing you can do because we're gonna euthanize it. Why would you bring your dog
8:16
here, make it suffer, you know, if they have to hold it
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legally for a few days? Any other laws in in that state? I don't remember.
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This was Tennessee, and I have a feeling they could've euthanized on intake.
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But what put the dog through that? Why if you love this animal, then you
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should do it. And that was another take on managed intake that I thought, that
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makes sense. I get that. So managed intake seemed like a good
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thing to me. Okay. Fast forward, we get to the pandemic.
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We get 2021, I think I feel started hearing about
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not just managed intake, but community sheltering, which was this other
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idea about, you know, putting the burden back on the community. So when you find
8:52
a pet, a lost animal, supposedly lost animal, instead of bringing it to the
8:56
shelter, they advised you to either take it into your home and try
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to foster and find it at home or leave it where you found it
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because, you know, most dogs are a mile from the place where they got
9:07
lost, which all sounds lovely unless that animal was dumped. Yeah.
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Community sheltering sounded like a I thought you were gonna say it's making it a
9:14
community resource center, but it means leave the animals in the community? Yeah. If
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you Google community sheltering, it was first brought about by the Human
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Animal Support Services, HAAS. And that's what they
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advocate. If you go to a website that practices that, they're gonna say, don't
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call us with your lost animal. Leave it where it is. Try to tell
9:32
people in the neighborhood. And there's different variations on it. And I'm really giving you
9:36
the very worst interpretation of it because some places interpret it
9:39
differently, and it can be successful. But that is the interpretation
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that many shelters ran with. And so we started hearing about this. We got
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calls from people in Memphis about the stray population being out of control.
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And so when we started going back out again, we started seeing that.
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Not just that there was a lot of strays, it was just starting at that
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point. But the managed intake was also being interpreted differently. It
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wasn't just you have to make an appointment. It was we're not gonna take your
10:05
dog. Can't even tell you how many shelters we walked through in in 2023,
10:09
especially, and definitely in 2024, that had signs on their door that said we do
10:12
not take owners or vendors. Closed to intake. They would
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have no drop offs. There would just be all these signs. And I
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and that was quote unquote managed intake. And those are shelters that are
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municipal shelters that are normally open intake. So it's not that it's
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a SBCA or humane society that would normally have selective
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intake. Okay. Right. Exactly. Because prior to that, that's the only place we
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ever saw that. And so I was always writing about it. I think I wrote
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a piece called Tale of Two Shelters about the municipal shelter and the nonprofit that
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were in the same town, you know, and what that means. And so that trying
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to explain to people what that means, because we're all about raising awareness, giving you
10:47
the information so that you can help. So it
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really was a surprise to me that that was being interpreted that way, but we
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saw it all over the place. And a lot of it is just this
10:58
pressure. Shelters feel like they have to be no kill. You know, they're not quote
11:01
unquote no kill. They don't have that little plaque on the wall. It's hard to
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get supporters. It's hard to get people to come in your door. You get labeled
11:07
the kill shelter. And so, you know, to be no kill, they wanna get
11:11
to that 90%, which is which is a really arbitrary
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number in my opinion. They just would not take
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in dogs if they didn't have to. Like, in Memphis, the way they got around
11:21
it legally was change of one word in the ordinance. The ordinance was
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animal control officers shall pick up
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dogs running at large. I can't remember the exact word, but some to that effect.
11:32
They changed it to May? They changed it to May.
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May pick up dog sled. And that little one
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tiny word, which who's gonna notice that when we're we're putting up a new ordinance?
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Who's gonna notice that one little tiny change? I mean, it changes everything. It
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sure does. It's also it surprises me because picking up stray dogs
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is usually viewed as human safety. It's human
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public safety is why you're picking up stray dogs. You're not picking up stray
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dogs for by and large, the municipality is not picking up stray dogs to protect
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the dog. So I'm surprised that they would make a a decision in an
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ordinance not to pick up all stray dogs. Yeah. And I have the
12:09
same thought about community sheltering. Like, why why would you tell people to
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keep this? And you know nothing about this dog. This could be a dog that
12:16
was dumped because it attacked her child. This could be a dog that is infested
12:20
with parasites. This could be a dog that's pregnant. I mean, you don't know. If
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you just tell a community to leave it there or bring it to your
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house, that's dangerous. That's dangerous. And and not just
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for the people, but for the dog. I mean, who knows what those people are
12:33
like? Whether they're gonna care for that animal, whether they're gonna you know, how do
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you know they're not gonna just chain it up outside and, you know, they don't
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even know to feed it? Who knows what they would do? You know? I just
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think the way it's been interpreted is creating is change. And it's just amazing to
12:47
me to see the difference. You know? And everybody anybody who looks at the news
12:51
can see that the numbers of dogs being euthanized has gone up three years in
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a row now, first time in two decades that that happened. So we're
12:58
euthanizing more animals. And to my mind, that number's barely
13:02
showing it because the stray population is so out of
13:05
control. And you know because you're involved with shelters, eighty
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percent of animals coming into a shelter are not spayed or neutered, at
13:13
least in the South. That's the case. So if you are turning away all these
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animals and eighty percent of them are not spayed or neutered, they are coming back
13:19
to you in You're making the problem worse. You're magnifying the
13:23
problem. Yeah. So it's like a snowball, and it's been heart wrenching to me. I
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just feel like we've lost so much progress, and I watched this poll. And you
13:30
know what? It's all done with good intentions. These organizations that are promoting this, and
13:33
they wanna make us all no kill, and we all want everyone to be no
13:36
kill. It's great intentions. The problem is it's
13:40
been used wrong. People are so focused on that number, and they're
13:43
only counting the animals in the building. They're not counting the animals they didn't let
13:47
into the building and what's become of them.
14:03
So we talked a lot about what's not going well, and certainly it's a
14:07
challenging time for all shelters everywhere in the country. And you're right that the
14:10
euthanasia numbers are going up. But you've been to over
14:14
150 shelters, and that gives you sort of a unique perspective
14:17
about who's doing things right. Who's managed to figure
14:21
out how to engage the community, how to do everything better? Can you
14:25
give me some examples of what you've seen that really is moving the needle
14:29
in a positive direction? Yeah. Well, I can tell you what I've seen in terms
14:32
of the shelters that are doing well. And I wrote extensively about this in my
14:36
book, the fact that they have three things. They have leadership,
14:40
leadership committed to saving the animals. And that leadership is usually an animal
14:43
control officer or director, shelter manager or rescue director,
14:47
whoever it is. I mean, in some parts of, like, Georgia and Mississippi and in
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Tennessee, there are no municipal shelters, and so they're private nonprofit
14:54
that steps into that gap. You have somebody who's committed to this.
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And when they're committed to this, they're committed to involving everybody
15:02
and every idea. They're not somebody who comes in with an agenda that we're gonna
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do it this way. The ones that we've seen that are successful are the ones
15:08
that are, like, networking and working with other other
15:12
shelters and expanding their volunteer programs and building a rescue network, and
15:16
they're just they're pulling our community together. The second thing is they
15:19
have veterinary access, and that's a critical one right now everywhere. It's really hard.
15:23
They're real shortage of veterinarians, and it's hard to get them to work for shelters.
15:27
Right. Affordable veterinary access. And that has been a huge was a challenge. It's more
15:31
of a challenge now because of so many veterinary practices are being bought
15:35
up by these private companies, and they generally
15:39
put in policies that are not rescue friendly. And it's driven the cost up and
15:42
made it harder and harder for animals. And also, there's just,
15:46
less, money out there for spay and neuter. I mean, there's
15:49
just, you know Right. I'm thinking in the perfect storm, you know, it's it's very
15:53
expensive to hire veterinarians because of, you know, it's a very hard job. And and
15:56
those private equity firms that have bought up a lot of the vet practices have
15:59
driven up the price for for the shelters that have in house veterinarians
16:03
to be able to hire. But you're also right that it also you don't have
16:06
as many community veterinarians that are willing to work with the shelter at
16:10
reduced prices because it's a it's a larger business than that.
16:14
Yeah. So it's been really hard. One of the things we have seen is shelters
16:17
that are finding their work around their in house clinics, and they're finding
16:21
either retired vets or vets who you know, some veterinarians are happy to work at
16:24
a shelter because they don't have to deal with owners. And so, like, when
16:28
I had inter I just interviewed a veterinarian on this last a shelter veterinarian on
16:32
this last tour. And and I said to her, like, why did you leave private
16:35
practice to do good? And she said, people. Yeah. And
16:39
I totally got it. I totally understand that. So so that you know, that's one
16:43
way they're working around it. And I I know of a couple shelters that are
16:46
actually, you know, funding a lot of their work by having a
16:49
clinic that it does the shelter animals and also community animals. And
16:53
so they're able to do it at a little bit of a discount, but for
16:56
them, that's income. So that's a really cool model. So those two things,
17:00
leadership, veterinary access, but the most important piece is community engagement.
17:03
You have to get your community in the door. And that's hard when
17:07
I talk to animal control officers who are so you know, they see the
17:11
worst of the worst, you know, and they're kinda suspicious of people. But
17:15
the key to a shelter, you know, doing well, thriving, saving all their
17:19
animals, and being able to operate on open admission, is getting the community
17:23
in the door. Like, get the volunteers in there. Have a foster
17:26
network, have a rescue network. In my book, I wrote tons of
17:29
ideas. Some I've seen in I've bought some of them, like a shelter that built
17:33
a paw shaped dog park or dog trail. And so you can
17:36
you can come and use our facility. This is obviously for shelters that have enough
17:40
land to do this. But take one of our dogs for a walk on our
17:43
trail or even walk your own dog on our trail. But it gets people on
17:47
the property so they're thinking about you. Yeah. So happy people there.
17:50
There's a shelter in Roanoke, Virginia. They have a little free library right in the
17:54
front of the shelter. Gets people to stop, you know, to go there.
17:58
And that's that community center idea that you were talking about, not community sheltering,
18:02
but the shelter more of a community center. So there are activities for
18:05
kids, there are activities for older people, and that it becomes, you
18:09
know, like a library where people would just stop in. Yeah. I think it should
18:13
be a community resource. If if there's anything happening with dogs, it should happen there.
18:16
They should have obedience classes, agility classes. There's so many dog
18:20
sports that could happen there. You've already got these people with the skill set, you
18:23
know? Use them. They know how to train basic obedience
18:27
behavior. They know how to teach a dog to walk nicely on a leash. They
18:30
know how to do those kinds of things. But you can go beyond that. There's
18:33
so many things that you can do at a shelter that brings
18:37
people there so that that's their first thought, like, oh, that's where the animals
18:40
are. That's where I should go if I need help. But if you're a shelter
18:43
who has, like, ten to two, you know, Monday to Thursday hours,
18:47
you can't get people in your in your building. You know? Children's education is
18:50
another really important piece of it. We promoted it a lot with
18:54
Who Will Let the Dogs out. We have a free curriculum on our website for
18:57
people just to teach how to safely meet a dog. Because, you know, you
19:01
know from being in shelters, a lot of dogs end up from they're from biting
19:05
a child. And then usually, nine times out of 10, it's because that child did
19:08
not know how to safely interact with the dog. It's a life skill. Everybody should
19:11
have this life skill, and I'd love to see it. There's a place in North
19:15
Carolina where they actually teach in the schools. They go into the schools. It's a
19:18
eight week curriculum. I think it's in fourth grade, and it's for all schools, parochial,
19:22
private, public. And they teach humane education. It's a eight week curriculum once
19:26
a week. They come in. It culminates in this big event at the end where
19:29
they do a microchip clinic, and they you know, the kids can bring
19:33
their dogs. This would be like a big dog festival in the park. And it's
19:36
so cool, and I'm excited to see how that carries out in
19:39
Moore County, like, how that translates as those kids grow up because, you know,
19:43
they're learning about spay and neuter. They're learning about that. So we've just
19:47
gotta find ways to make this a a true community resource where
19:50
people can go for help with their pets and people want to go with their
19:54
pets. Yeah, and all the things you're talking about is about
19:57
creating advocates. Those kids hopefully are gonna you know, when
20:01
they're young, they're gonna say, Our next dog, we should go we go to the
20:04
shelter and adopt that next dog, but they also then become advocates and
20:07
ambassadors for the shelter, and all of the activities that you were talking
20:11
about to bring people into the shelter, like training classes
20:15
or volunteer opportunities, it also prevents surrender.
20:19
I mean, at the same time, if you're teaching people how to best
20:22
train their dogs so that they're, you know, not jumping up and knocking over their
20:25
kids, then hopefully you're gonna reduce the number of of dogs in the system from
20:29
being surrendered. Right. You know, you bring those people in too. If you have a
20:32
foster program, which everyone should have a foster program, those fosters are gonna
20:36
be your best advocates. They're gonna be the ones advocating not just for the dog.
20:39
Do you have any tips for recruiting fosters? I know you fostered over a hundred
20:42
dogs yourself, so you must have talked a lot of people into fostering. I
20:46
do. I talk to people all the time. I tell them all the time. It's
20:48
so much fun. My kids loved it. And it was they always said it was
20:51
like, we got a new dog every couple weeks. And and to them And were
20:55
they ever how how did they feel about giving them up? Because that's everybody's,
20:58
everybody's fear is, I can't I won't be able to let them go. You know,
21:02
I wrote a lot about this in my book, Another Good Dog. But I told
21:05
my kids at the beginning, you know, these aren't our dogs. We are just helping
21:09
these dogs. We're helping them get ready for their for their real home.
21:12
And we always had that you know, when the dog came in the door, we
21:15
knew that dog was leaving. And sometimes it was hard. Every time it was hard,
21:18
I would say to them, well, if we keep this one, we can't save another.
21:21
And that they get that. They totally get that. And they made that connection. Good.
21:25
And they totally get that. You know, and it's true of all of us. You
21:27
know, if you really care about something and you really wanna make a difference, it
21:30
might be painful. And that's what it is. And to me, my little broken
21:34
heart is nothing compared to the dogs that are dying in the shelters, you know.
21:38
And seeing what's happening there just makes me more and more
21:41
fired up to you know, I just had it one leave that I wish I
21:44
could've kept in a million ways and even thought about it, but I didn't because
21:47
it would have kept me from being able to foster more, so I let him
21:51
go.
22:02
And that leads me to start thinking about compassion fatigue
22:06
because, you know, you you have a great approach to it. It sounds like, you
22:09
know, my broken heart is nothing compared to what all of those animals are
22:12
going through. But, you know, you walked into a
22:16
lot of shelters that were very painful to see and where you saw
22:20
a lot of a lot of emotional and physical pain there
22:24
in the animals. How do you deal with that emotionally? Because I think a lot
22:27
of people are afraid to go into shelters. We're gonna be encouraging people to go
22:30
to their local shelter and learn about it and find out what their needs
22:34
are. How can you prepare for that emotionally? You know, you
22:38
can't ever prepare because you don't know for sure what you're gonna find there.
22:41
But I think it's the people that are there. Like, for me, when
22:45
I go in and I meet them and I see how hard they're working, how
22:49
much they're giving up, it inspires me
22:52
more than anything else. There are definitely times where you need a break, where you
22:56
need to, like, take off and get away from the animals for
23:00
a little while. But it's the other people that are there and and the friendships
23:03
you make and the commitments that everybody's made to try to
23:06
save more lives. And you have so many great moments too, and you'd have to
23:10
keep focused on those. Like, for me as a foster, and I still
23:13
foster, I have a Facebook group for my people who
23:17
adopt, and I ask them to put pictures up in there, so I can follow.
23:21
I can see them after they've been adopted. I can see what they're looking like.
23:24
And sometimes when I'm really bummed, I will post in there. Please, I need to
23:27
see some happy endings. Can you guys post me some happy endings?
23:31
And it just make you know, it makes my day to see when somebody posts
23:34
a dog that I fostered, you know, ten years ago. That's true. There,
23:38
you know? It's pretty amazing to see that. So, you know, it can be
23:42
hard, but there's ways to tippy toe into it also. There's a
23:45
program at this one I'm I can't remember what sheltered it, and I love the
23:49
idea, and I wanna promote it more. But they treat their dog their dogs are
23:53
kinda like a dog library, I wanna say. But people can go in and and
23:56
apply to be able to check out dogs, and
24:00
they get all approved. And they can check a dog out for an hour just
24:03
to take it for a walk. They can check it out to go for a
24:05
pup pup. They can check it out for a sleepover. They can check it out.
24:08
And it's kind of a way to tiptoe into fostering, and I love
24:12
that idea. So you get to take it out. You know, you're not committing. Because,
24:15
you know, when you say, oh, I'm gonna foster this dog. Well, if you have
24:17
to return it, you feel terrible. Right? You feel terrible if you have to give
24:20
it back. And everybody feels bad, and everyone thinks what's wrong with that dog. And
24:23
it may have nothing to do with that dog. It may have to do with
24:25
your cat or your kid or whatever is going on in your life. So
24:29
this was such a cool idea. It's like you were checking out dogs' like library
24:33
books. And it was so cool because I love that. Just the short commitment and
24:37
You could walk in Even if you never do anything else, you help that dog.
24:41
Yes. Exactly. You know, worst case is that dog got out of the shelter for
24:44
an hour. That, you know, it can be life changing for a dog. It can
24:47
save their lives literally. And maybe somebody saw him in an adopt me vest,
24:51
and maybe you got a picture of him out of Starbucks that makes people think
24:54
they could they could see him as their dog. There's a lot of ways that
24:57
it helps. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I we need a clever name for it
25:00
because I, like, check out I have to come up with a clever name because
25:03
and I can't and I, for the life of me, cannot remember which shelter
25:07
we heard about that at. I wanna say it was in Kentucky, but I'm not
25:10
positive. I think we have some around here. It's like, you know, doggy day outs
25:13
or play dates or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So
25:17
I come to animal sheltering as a lawyer and
25:20
think about sort of law and policy and how we might use
25:24
that to get better outcomes for animals. Are there any
25:27
initiatives in the law and policy arena that appeal to you in terms of
25:31
making change? I'm sure these laws are already in place in New England.
25:35
But where in the South, 1 of the laws that's kind of catching getting
25:39
momentum and starting to get passed everywhere is a a cost of care
25:42
act, which is a great thing because, you know, when a when dogs are seized
25:46
in a court case and they're the court hold dogs, they're
25:50
so isolated in a shelter. Generally, the public's not allowed to
25:53
go near them in many shelters. They could sit there for
25:57
months. I know of cases where they were there for a year, puppies that grew
26:00
up in that shelter. And by the time that case was finally settled,
26:04
they weren't even adoptable anymore because they'd been in a shelter all that time. And
26:08
so cost of care says that when your animals are seized
26:12
because of this, you're gonna have to pay per day for that animal to stay,
26:15
or you're gonna have to surrender it. And that's the way the law is being
26:19
written in Kentucky, and I believe it's about to happen somewhere else. I wanna say
26:23
I should know because someone just messaged me about it. Maybe Georgia. I should know
26:26
too. Because that that was actually the first thing that I worked on in terms
26:30
of in Pennsylvania was the cost of care law, and we got it
26:34
passed back in 2013 because a lot of the cruelty cases I mean, it's
26:38
it's terrible for the animals, but, also, sometimes the cruelty law doesn't get
26:41
enforced because it was so expensive for the shelters to enforce it. Yeah. In,
26:45
say, a hoarding case where you have a 50 cats or something, it's
26:49
you just can't take custody of them and and then care for them for the
26:52
whole length of a criminal proceeding at your own expense. Right. One
26:56
shelter in Kentucky that we visited had just taken, they had 24 kennels. They'd taken
26:59
in a hoarding case, and it was, like, 20 dogs. So
27:03
they were gonna have to and they were a shelter that euthanizes for space.
27:07
Now they're completely they're stuck with these 20 dogs for and that's partly,
27:11
it's terrible for the dog, but partly, it also limits the other animals that
27:15
the shelter can help. And it means that other dogs are gonna die. So it's
27:19
an important law, and it really needs to be passed everywhere.
27:22
Hopefully it will. Okay. Great. Is there anything else that you wanna
27:26
share with our listeners about what they can do to get involved?
27:30
Yes. I believe so firmly that everybody can do something. I
27:33
mean, you could do something as small as following your local
27:37
shelter and on Facebook or wherever they are and liking
27:41
and commenting and sharing and engaging so that it drives those posts
27:44
to be shown in more feeds and helps. I mean, that's so minor. That's
27:48
just a couple clicks on an daily basis. That can really
27:51
help. Obviously, you can always donate. I always encourage people, if you're gonna help
27:55
a municipal shelter, shop their Amazon wish list. Getting involved
27:59
in your own shelter and trying to find ways to help, to figure out what
28:02
it is. When we go to visit a shelter, one of the questions I ask
28:06
is, you know, how can people help? What do you need? And we try to
28:09
get that put that message out. And and so instead of just
28:13
blindly, you know, sending a check, it's sometimes better to
28:17
contact them and find out, you know, how can how can we help? What can
28:19
we do? We have volunteers all over the country that volunteer for
28:23
us and our organization and their job. Many of them are shelter liaisons, and their
28:27
job, they're assigned usually about four shelters. I say to them,
28:31
stalk online because they're not anywhere near them. And they're just doing
28:34
that for us. They're tracking what's happening them. What's happening in their shelter, they're
28:38
looking for really good ideas, really cool ideas, and they'll share them with
28:42
us. And then we put them in our resource guide. On our website, there's a
28:45
resource guide. I think it's under the shelters tab for shelters
28:49
tab. And it has every idea we've seen for, like, adoption events or
28:52
fundraising or grants or protocols or
28:56
enrichment, all of that. Every time we see another cool idea, we put it
29:00
in that resource guide so it's in one place. So if you're a shelter or
29:03
rescue, when you're looking for a new idea, a novel, something new to
29:07
do for social media or for whatever, you can kinda go through that
29:10
guide and find a new idea that you maybe didn't didn't think of.
29:14
So there's stuff you can do right from your home. You know? I'm also gonna
29:18
be the first one to say foster. Fostering will fostering is a right now, with
29:22
the situation in our shelters, that is the one thing anybody can do to
29:25
truly make a difference and save a life is to foster. Right? We need fosters
29:29
more than anything else right now. Every shelter nearly every shelter in this
29:32
country is at capacity or overcapacity. Fostering can give them some
29:36
breathing room. You can provide some dogs some time. So it's also
29:40
super fun. I wanna make a little plug for it. If you have tween
29:43
age kids or teenage kids, fostering is a really fun thing that
29:47
kinda it definitely brought our family together. I mean, we had a lot of laughs
29:51
and a lot of fun taking care of dogs, and we did a lot of
29:54
puppies, which was super fun. My kids got to see puppies come into the
29:58
world. They saw some hard stuff too because it doesn't always have it's
30:02
not always a happy ending, but I think that was also important. They got to
30:05
learn that sometimes, like, it doesn't go the way you hoped it would
30:09
go, but that doesn't change the importance of doing this, you know,
30:13
sometimes. That's a great message. Life lessons for tweens and teens in in
30:16
fostering, and that's fantastic. I've heard so many. I love the work
30:20
you're doing, and I love your idea of shelter liaisons, and I think
30:24
that people can take that idea and even run with it in their own community
30:27
and say that maybe I could be the shelter liaison for a shelter near me,
30:31
and I could talk to them and find out what their needs are and
30:35
share it with people in my community who might not wanna go to the shelter
30:38
but could help them get the resources they need to be able to take care
30:41
of the animals. So I appreciate all that you're doing. People
30:45
can find Cara and all of their work at
30:47
whowillletthedogsout.org. Right? Yep. And is there a
30:51
link there to buy your book of the same name? There is. There's a link
30:55
there. It's also on Amazon, of course, but you can definitely buy it there. We
30:58
give this book away free to shelters and rescues. So anybody who is a
31:02
shelter or rescue would like a copy, they just reach out to me, and we
31:05
send that copy. And if you would like, you know, every purchase that is made
31:08
helps pay for us to do that. So if you would like to send one
31:12
to a shelter or rescue, you can also do that through our website. You can
31:14
fill out the form. You can tell us what shelter you want us to send
31:17
it to, and you can buy them a book that way too. Wonderful. Or
31:21
your local school, your local library. Okay. Well, thank you
31:25
so much, Cara, and keep in touch because I really I really admire your work.
31:29
Thank you. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Bye bye.
31:33
Thanks for listening today. I hope Cara's insights gave you some fresh
31:36
perspective on shelter challenges and opportunities.
31:40
You'll find a link to who will let the dogs out in the show notes,
31:44
and I've spent some time exploring their site, And it's full of
31:48
practical ideas for supporting your own local shelter. What
31:51
I appreciate about Kara's approach is how she connects
31:55
observation directly to action, seeing
31:59
what's happening and finding specific ways to help. So
32:02
take a moment this week to check out your local shelter's website or social
32:06
media. What are they asking for? What
32:10
challenges are they facing? The most valuable support
32:13
comes from understanding the actual needs rather than
32:17
what we might assume they are.
32:22
That's it for today. The Animal Advocate podcast is brought
32:26
to you by the Animal Advocacy Academy. You can find
32:29
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32:31
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there. If you're interested in learning more about protecting
32:45
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comes out. If you have any questions on this or any other
32:53
topic related to animal law, email them to
32:56
podcast@animaladvocacyacademy.com, and
33:00
we'll make sure to get them answered. We'll either email you back
33:04
or feature them in a future episode or both. And
33:08
remember, compassion is great, but compassionate
33:11
action is infinitely better. Until next week,
33:15
live with compassion.