Purpose

An animal shelter should be a safe haven for all animals in need, and should function as the nucleus of a community's animal care and control program. It should teach humane principles in the community and protect animals from cruelty and suffering. Its staff should provide quality care for all animals in its charge, making every effort to provide a safe, comfortable, and healthy environment. The shelter should also be accessible to the public and serve as a resource to the community.

General Policies

If your shelter is a municipal animal care and control facility, the commissioners in charge must fully acquaint themselves with the community's animal problems and should consistently allocate adequate funding and resources for a humane and effective animal care and control program. A comprehensive animal control ordinance should be in place and adequately enforced.

If your shelter is a private facility (or a private facility with a government contract to perform animal care and control functions), all members of the board of directors must have a basic understanding of animal care and control issues. Board members should commit time and effort to help develop policies and plans that will help the animals, support the staff, and serve the community. Board members should remember that they are responsible to the dues-paying membership and should report the shelter's activities to the membership at regular intervals.

The policies below are minimum standards for any animal shelter. While a shelter is limited to its available resources, it should follow these policies closely if it is to be an asset to the animals and the community it serves:

• Accept every animal, or partner with another local shelter or facility that does.
• Accept surrendered animals without charging a mandatory fee.
• Maintain a clean, comfortable, safe, and healthy environment for each animal.
• If applicable, hold stray animals for a minimum of five operating days, including Saturdays.
• Screen prospective adopters using established adoption standards.
• Use sodium pentobarbital administered by well-trained, compassionate individuals when euthanasia is necessary.
• Spay or neuter all animals at the time of adoption, or require adopters to get their animals sterilized soon after placement and follow up to ensure compliance.

Customer Service

Shelter staff should strive to maintain a positive attitude and an inviting atmosphere to encourage the public to bring in stray and unwanted animals. If there are too many obstacles to surrendering animals, people are more likely to abandon them. Signs directing the public to your shelter's location should be clearly posted.

Daily Operations

Every shelter, no matter how small, should have written operational policies and standards. Written standard operating procedures (SOPs) will protect your organization from liability, and will provide stability and consistency to ensure that daily operations run smoothly. It is a binding obligation of shelter administrators to evaluate current procedures frequently.

Hours of Operation

Your shelter should be open to the public a minimum of five days per week for claiming or adopting animals, including at least one weekend day. It should be open until at least 7 p.m. at least one evening a week. It is also important to have at least one day a week when the shelter is closed to the public. The hours of operation should be clearly posted outside the shelter and made known throughout the community.

Shelters that offer emergency services in their community should be able to receive and assist sick or injured animals twenty-four hours a day.

Animal Care and Housing

Your shelter should provide the most comfortable, stress-free environment possible for the animals in your care. Animals should have access to clean, fresh water at all times (unless fasting for anesthesia) and be fed according to HSUS recommendations or those of a consulting veterinarian. Food and water bowls should be properly disinfected every day.

Cages and kennels should be commercially manufactured, in good condition, cleaned and disinfected daily, and free of sharp or broken edges. Dogs and cats must be housed separately, and the housing should reflect their different needs.

For more information on shelter operations, please see HSUS Guidelines for the Operation of an Animal Shelter.

Adoptions

Your shelter should strive to place animals in loving, responsible, and permanent homes. Animals should be sterilized prior to adoption in order to prevent more unwanted litters and to reduce the hormonally-based instinct to roam. You should have a comprehensive and firm set of adoption selection criteria to assist your staff in making decisions about individual animals’ adoptability and screening adopters. Adoption programs should contain some follow-up component, so that you can keep track of the animals you’ve placed into the community and measure your effectiveness.

Euthanasia

Shelters must demonstrate a respect for quality of life and provide the most humane death possible for animals who are suffering or otherwise not suitable for adoption. In order to be humane, a euthanasia method must result in painless, rapid unconsciousness followed by cardiac or respiratory arrest and, ultimately, death. The HSUS recommends an overdose injection of sodium pentobarbital, prepared specifically for the euthanasia of companion animals. This method, when properly performed, has been found to be the most humane, safest, least stressful, and most professional choice.

Only staff who have been properly trained in animal handling and euthanasia should perform it. Shelters also must follow federal and state guidelines regarding euthanasia methods and administration.

It is imperative that shelters who administer euthanasia consider it a critical duty and therefore provide adequate support to the staff who perform this difficult task. Euthanasia programs should be given the same attention and resources as any other shelter program.

For more information on euthanasia, please see HSUS Statement n Euthanasia Methods for Dogs and Cats.

Record Keeping

Complete and accurate records are essential for the responsible, efficient, and legal operation of your animal shelter. A record should be prepared for every animal entering your shelter, giving a full description of the animal and any information about the animal's background that is available. These records should be numbered and filed so that all staff can easily retrieve them. An animal should have the same record or tag number throughout his or her stay at the shelter, and each animal must be clearly identified with a temporary collar and tag.

Accurate record keeping is also necessary for an effective lost-and-found program as well as for tracking animal control calls, cruelty complaints, and the care and disposition of the animals in the shelter's care. Several computer software programs for shelter management are available. Contact The HSUS's Animal Sheltering Issues staff for more information.

Programs

Shelter activities should be based on the best interests of the animals and the community. The role of staff members is to provide humane care of the animals and to carry out the shelter's programs effectively. Staff members should provide commissioners or board members with information or assistance that will promote the development of responsible animal care and control programs.

Spay/Neuter Efforts

It is imperative that shelters have a mandatory spay/neuter program for all adopted animals, preferably one that incorporates both sterilization at adoption and pediatric spay/neuter. Shelters should make it a top priority to ensure that the animals they place for adoption do not contribute to companion animal overpopulation.

It is equally as important that shelters strive to connect the residents of their community with low-cost sterilization services, if the shelter is unable to provide it directly.

Cruelty Investigation

Every community should have trained personnel to investigate animal cruelty issues and enforce animal protection laws. All calls and complaints must be handled in a professional, courteous, and timely manner. Personnel should be able to respond twenty-four hours a day in cases of emergency. If a shelter doesn't have an investigator, it should refer callers to the appropriate law enforcement agency in the area.

Humane Education

Your shelter should make every effort to provide humane education for local residents, especially children. From sponsoring community-wide awareness campaigns to sending shelter staff into classrooms for presentations, your shelter can embrace a variety of strategies to teach responsible pet ownership and instill a humane ethic in all members of the community.

Volunteers

Volunteers can be an invaluable asset to your shelter's programs and its animals. However, don't expect volunteers to fill most staffing needs. All volunteers must be properly trained and supervised in much the same manner as are staff.

Management

It is a binding obligation of shelter administrators to evaluate current procedures frequently; ensure that animals are properly cared for; and verify that employees are competent, compassionate, and properly trained.

Personnel

Shelter employees should be regarded as the skilled professionals that they are and should be paid on that basis. All job positions and descriptions should include salaries and benefits that will attract competent people with good judgment who care about treating animals humanely. Written policies and procedures for employees are essential, not only for the orientation and training of new employees, but also to ensure continuity and efficiency within the shelter.

A comprehensive policies and procedures manual, explaining shelter policies and general job duties, should be made available to every staff member. The following is a suggested outline:

1. History, mission, purposes, and general policies (including euthanasia policies and other policies related to animals)
2. Organizational structure, job descriptions for all positions, policies for benefits and leave
3. Role of the board or other governing body
4. Procedures for office, kennel, and field services; security and safety procedures
5. Resources, including state and local animal laws and a list of other animal care and control agencies in the community

Training

Shelter staff must be trained so they can effectively perform the following functions:

• Provide humane care for shelter animals.
• Protect the animals from disease and injury.
• Solve or refer all types of community animal problems to the proper person or agency.
• Deal with the public courteously, professionally, and effectively.

Every animal care organization should engage in rigorous training for new staff and continuing education for veterans. Shelter employees should be encouraged to attend out-of-house training sessions and be given opportunities to do so. An effort should be made to address problems associated with employee stress, including adoption—and euthanasia—related anxiety.