To measure the success of a shelter or rescue in its goal to place animals successfully into adoptive homes, there are common metrics used. One is the organization’s live release rate — the percentage of animals who leave a shelter alive via adoption, transfer to another organization, or return to their guardian rather than being euthanized. Another metric used for outcome success is the rate of animals who are returned to the organization after being adopted.

Shelters and rescues strive to increase their live release rate and decrease returns by investing in various programs that lead to positive outcomes. These programs can include:

1. Eliminating breed labels: Breed labels can become problematic for pit bull-type breeds due to the stigma associated with dog fighting and fears about aggression. These labels are commonly inaccurate and misleading at predicting behavior.
2. Transfer partnerships: Transfer programs allow for shelters to send animals to other organizations when they’re at capacity or when the animal requires more specialized care they can’t provide.
3. Foster homes: Foster programs allow for animals to stay in a person’s home temporarily, which reduces their stress and opens up kennel space within the shelter.
4. Adoption matching: Matching programs are used to help guide potential adopters in finding a dog who’s compatible with their lifestyle based on the dog’s behavior and medical needs.

Shelter traits also have an impact on live release rates and returns. These traits tend to be fixed or less likely to change within an organization. Examples include budget, staffing level, number of volunteers, and intake policy, as well as the nature of the organization itself. Shelters can be public, private, or non-profit. Some are government-run, while others have a government contract for animal control services. There are also rescue groups who typically don’t have a physical shelter and instead rely on foster homes for the smaller number of animals they serve. Furthermore, some organizations are open intake, meaning they take in all animals from the area they serve. Others are limited intake and choose which animals they receive into their care.

There have been mixed results from past research on shelter traits impacting live release and return rates. At the same time, research on how programs impact shelter success has typically been limited to a single program or shelter and tends to fail at capturing larger trends within the United States. Thus, this study sought to find out whether programs or shelter traits helped increase live release rates and decrease returns rates for dogs.

In 2020, an online survey was sent to 898 shelters and rescue groups who had applied for grant funding from the PEDIGREE Foundation within the last six years. The survey contained 169 questions about organizational traits, volunteer roles and training, transfer programs, breed labels, matching programs, and foster programs. Data on live release and return rates from 2011 to 2018 were also collected. A total of 370 organizations participated, representing a 41% response rate.

The results revealed that only 17% had an open intake policy. Along with most organizations limiting their intake, 44% were also breed-specific, meaning they only help a specific breed of dog. There was a large variation in annual budgets, ranging from $5,000 to over $6 million, and human resources, ranging from none to close to 1,000 staff. On average, the organizations had 18 volunteers for every staff member and took in 306 dogs per staff member per year. The mean live release rate was over 90% and mean return rates were 2% for puppies and 6% for dogs.

The study found only modest correlations between outcome success and shelter traits and programs, including the following:

• Poorer outcomes were associated with non-profits with municipal contracts, higher intake-to-staff ratios, and more staff and volunteers.
• Better outcomes were associated with rescues, eliminating breed labels, a longer time between the dog arriving at the shelter and being made available for adoption, and the use of foster and adoption matching programs.
• Programs are associated with positive outcomes more so than organizational traits are.

The surprising finding was the correlation between increased staff and volunteers and lower live release rates, which conflicts with past research. The author suggests that this may be due to a lack of foster programming, as shelters with high numbers of staff and volunteers may have more capacity for animal care on site and not see the need for fostering. Despite emphasizing programs over organizational traits for positive outcomes, the author notes that human resources — paid or unpaid — are needed to run effective foster and adoption matching programs.

There were a number of limitations to the research, with a significant one being the way participants were recruited. The study’s funder, PEDIGREE Foundation, only offers grants to non-profit organizations. This means that no public municipal animal shelter was included, which introduces selection bias and points to the need for further research with a greater diversity of organizations.

As an advocate for shelter dogs, metrics are one way to measure outcome success. However, it’s important to consider the complexity of variables that feed into these numbers. Understanding organizational traits such as open or limited intake, private or public services, as well as program investment will help you gain a better picture of positive outcome assessment for shelter dogs.