Pinellas Pet Partnership Sees Positive Trends

ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Since a collaboration between several of Pinellas County’s major animal services agencies began five years ago, statistics about shelter pets are no longer in the doghouse.

After five years of collecting data together, Pinellas County Animal Services, SPCA Tampa Bay, Friends of Strays, Humane Society of Pinellas and Pet Pal Animal Shelter shared the results of their findings on Wednesday, March 29 at the county’s Animal Services.

“As a community, we have seen a decrease in intakes and shelter euthanasia and an increase in dog and cat adoptions and live releases overall,” said Doug Brightwell, director of Pinellas County Animal Services. “All of these are key indicators that we are going in the right direction.”

Possible reasons for the positive trends include the collaboration with partners, the priority on adoption promotions, and improved economy and good alternatives to bringing pets to shelters, the data showed.

“We are so excited by the positive trends in our community,” said Stacy Efaw, the executive director of the Humane Society of Pinellas. “Increasing adoptions and reducing euthanasia has been a focus of this countywide collaboration. These positive trends show that our collaborative programs are having an impact.”

In July, the Pinellas Pet Partnership implemented a new intake model that instructed people who find stray dogs and cats to transfer the animal to Animal Services and any other species found or injured wildlife taken to SPCA Tampa Bay. Another course of action was instructing pet owners who need to surrender their pet to contact SPCA Tampa Bay, Humane Society of Pinellas or Pet Pal Animal Shelter.

Animal Services and SPCA Tampa Bay also made changes to create a central housing system for stray dogs and cats in Pinellas County, and standardized information stored about lost or found pets.

“While we’re seeing less pets entering local shelters, the percentage of lost pets being returned to their owners has not really improved,” said Martha Boden, CEO of SPCA Tampa Bay. “Helping more lost pets be reunited with their owners will remain a focus this year and we will use the 2016 numbers as a baseline to measure our efforts moving forward.”

During the press conference, it was announced that Friends of Strays Animal Shelter would join the collaborative reporting for 2017.

“It’s a great opportunity to partner with well-established organizations that provide support to our homeless animals,” said Dara Eckart, the executive director of Friends of Strays.

The trends are based on data collected by the four participating animal welfare agencies in Pinellas County from January 2012 to December 2016. Each organization compiles its data using the same reporting matrix, so information from several shelters is comparable and can show patterns that more accurately reflect animal welfare conditions throughout the county.

“We all know we can do so much more when we are working together,” Boden said. “And the encouraging trends we have seen over the past five years are proof of that.”

For more information on Pinellas County Animal Services, visit http://www.pinellascounty.org/animalservices/.

Image via Pinellas County Animal Services Facebook page