Who Are The Stray Animals In Our Shelters?
Late in 2010, Dr. Margaret Slater, Dr. Linda Lord and I conducted a piece of research focused on learning more about the frequency of pets getting lost, as well as the percents of those animals then recovered. We were really interested in starting to look at the question of who are those stray animals in our shelters, and gathering this information was a step toward that goal. The study has just been published in the peer reviewed journal Animals, and is available to you here:
This study is, to our knowledge, the first published national study regarding lost pets, and it is filled with data that is of potential interest and importance to our field. We conducted the research though a cross-sectional national random digit dial telephone interview. A total of 2,666 households were successfully contacted, with 39% percent of those having owned a dog or cat in the past 5 years.
Those who did own a dog or cat in the past 5 years were asked a few questions about that pet (sex, neuter status, etc.). That included pets no longer in the home. They were then asked: “The next series of questions has to do with whether your pet has ever become lost. Examples of this include: your pet ran away from home, your pet was gone longer than expected, your pet didn’t come home when he/she usually does, your pet escaped from the yard or house.” The question was very purposely worded as such to capture a wide net of “lost.”
Our results found that 15% of pet owners in our sample had lost a dog or a cat in the past 5 years, and the percentage of lost dogs vs. lost cats was quite similar – 14% of dogs and 15% for cats. We were and are quite interested in this rate. It is lower than we anticipated, and has some interesting implications when we use these estimates to account for lost pets nationally – but more on that in a bit.
We asked survey respondents if they found their pet after he/she went missing – 85% of those lost dogs and cats were recovered. This recovery rate was also higher than we anticipated, and when we looked at the recovery rate for dogs vs. cats, it gets even juicier – with 93% of dogs found and 74% of cats found.
The methods used by those searching for a lost cat vs. a lost dog varied significantly. 49% of owners found their dog by searching the neighborhood, and 15% of the dogs were recovered because of a tag or microchip. For cats, 59% of owners found their pets because they returned home on their own, and 30% found their cat by searching the neighborhood. Dr. Lord discovered a similar pattern in earlier research, and she further found in that research that cat owners tend to wait 3 days before searching for their cat, while dog owners tend to wait 1 day. Educating cat owners that if they lose their cat they should immediately search their neighborhood would be a great way to take a piece of this research and put it into action!
So who are those strays in our shelters? It is interesting that only 6% of dog owners and 2% of cat owners found their lost pets at a shelter – and remember, most of them found their pets.
In our data set, we found that dogs and cats were not significantly more likely to have been lost if they were unaltered, and that human demographics such as age and income were not highly correlated with the pet getting lost. While more supportive data would be needed, this suggests that some myths around factors that increase the likelihood a pet might get lost may need refining.
What interests me most: The number of lost pets and the number of those lost who get recovered indicates that there is a possibility that a significant percentage of the stray dogs and cats in the shelters around the country do not have someone looking for them. If we use the APPA pet estimates to extrapolate the number of dogs lost and not recovered in 5 years, we end up with 766,360. That is, 766,360 dogs in 5 years who were not found. Now, even if all of those dogs ended up in shelters around the nation, that does not come close to the number of stray dogs who are coming into shelters nationally in a five-year period. While fewer cats are recovered than dogs, the numbers for cats also suggests that at least some proportion of the non-feral stray cats entering our shelters is not lost. But… if they are not lost, what are they?
While we need more research, it is prudent at this point to consider the population of stray dogs and cats in your facility — if many of those may in fact not be lost, but potentially abandoned, or a community dog or cat who was supported to some extent within a neighborhood. Knowing the exact locations where these dogs and cats are found can be a vital piece of unraveling that puzzle (To learn more about location targeting, read about ASPCA research on GIS targeting).
Preventing these dogs and cats from entering our shelters takes a different set of tools than the tools we use to keep lost pets from entering our shelters (ID tags, educating the community about search methods, etc.). It may be that pet support services (temporary boarding, vet care, food banks, etc.) are needed in the community to decrease that percentage of strays – or even more outside-the-box programming of community advocates to help cease the growth of the community dog or cat populations.
Related links:
“Frequency of Lost Dogs and Cats in the United States and the Methods Used to Locate Them”
“Lost and…Found or Abandoned?”
“LOST!”
Tags: GIS, ID Tagging, Intake, Research, Research & Data, Return to Owner, Saving Lives, Shelter Health
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Michael Kitkoski Says:
Thank you for this incredible research, Dr. Weiss. Your studies have changed the way we do business – from ID tags to how we target low-cost spay/neuter. Your work is very much appreciated.
Tricia Breen Says:
The recovery rate is probably not very surprising. People willing to participate in the survey are those that are committed to their pets and willing to share their experiences. Those that decline survey participation might be less so. Selection.
Emily Weiss Says:
Tricia –
Thanks for your comment. If you follow the link to the research you can see how that variable was handled.
Jeanne Says:
I believe ( from experience as a volunteer) that the pets that are found and turned into shelters are actually lost because they were allowed to free roam but never recovered or ID’d by owners because: 1- owners don’t want to pay fines to recover them, 2- do not know where their local shelter is, 3- if they wait 1 or 2 days to look, then the pet may have been euthanized because of short time allowed at kill-shelters.
Emily Weiss Says:
Jeane – first, thank you for your work as a volunteer! Your hard work is an important piece of the work to get dogs and cats safely home. Regarding your comment, interestingly, our research found that the vast majority of those that lost a dog did recover the dog, and the majority of cat owners did as well. I do agree that there is a possibility that a fine may pose a barrier to some pet owners who are in great finanical jepardy, and that we should look for solutions to support those folks so they can bring their pets back home. However, that number still would not account for the number of strays in our shelters.
Christine Says:
This topic is one I’ve been trying to learn more about in order to get more lost pets back home, decrease the number of stray cats and help increase adoptions (almost one third of owned cats are believed to have been obtained as strays). Kat Albrecht has a free recorded webinar online (on the Petfinder site) called “Think Lost, Not Stray” that identifies many barriers to increasing the return to owner rate.
I helped return a found cat to her family after a cat followed my neighbor home. The cat had to stay at our home, and I posted ads online on several sites. The neighbor posted a found cat poster in the nearby corner store. The cat’s owner saw the poster and phoned by neighbor very early in the morning. The family were very eager to get the young, intact female cat back.
When I drove the cat about six blocks to her home, the family showed me photos on the computer to prove she belonged to them. Since they had a computer and Internet access, I was curious and asked why they didn’t look for online ads or post any. The young father told me that people help stray dogs, not stray cats. (I hope he no longer believes that!) This mindset is another barrier we need to overcome.
I will keep trying to get my city, dog, TNR and rescue groups to let pet owners know about the free info online about how and where to search for lost pets. Sites like Missing Pet Partnership, the related blog and Cats in the Bag (dot) org have very helpful and unique recovery tips because they’re species specific and behavior specific. This info is proactive and can help decrease the number of pets who enter shelters or end up living as strays. (The cat I returned to her home was very friendly and followed my neighbor. MPP notes cats with that personality trait results in cats who travel further from home and requires different recovery techniques than fearful cats.)
Increasing the number of pets with ID is helpful. The City of Calgary in Alberta, Canada has the highest return to owner rate in North America (86 percent of dogs and 55 percent of cats picked up by animal services were returned to their homes in 2010) . They have removed barriers to licensing pets and offer incentives such as a discount savings reward card (I Heart My Pet) in exchange for what they call Responsible Pet Ownership. Licensing compliance is 90 percent for dogs and at least 50 percent for cats. The cities of Regina and Saskatoon in Saskatchewan have followed suit. Their rewards programs are both called My Pet Matters.
In Calgary, people understand that licencing fees, not taxes, support programs and services for animals and education about responsible pet ownership; this is another incentive to purchase pet licenses. Programs funded this way include veterinary care for shelter animals and emergency vet care for injured strays, free spay/neuter for pets of low income families, dog bite prevention education and more. They will drive licensed pets directly home. I believe they will also deliver found pet flyers to neighborhood where stray animals have been picked up. (Animal services does not accept owner surrenders. Their Humane Society offers info and assistance with pet retention and will accept owner surrenders.)
I’m not sure we can know the true number of lost pets that end up in shelters since pet owners can state that their unwanted pets are strays if they relinquish them to shelters.