Shelter’s Edge

Knowing how many animals are spayed/neutered in your community can help you understand why animals are coming through your doors unaltered. How do you gather and track this important piece of data? By collecting Altered Status at intake, you’ll have a leg up on capturing clean data. Here’s how:

Many organizations determine sex at intake, but then alter that field when the animal is spayed or neutered prior to adoption. Maintaining an accurate Altered Status is very easy to do in many databases—simply by selecting Male, Female, Spayed and Neutered at intake, your staff can capture this vital information.

What may not be so easy, however, is sexing and determining altered status for cats. To help with this difficult process, we have created this simple poster that staff can download and keep on hand to help them quickly and accurately determine sex for cats and kittens.

Once staff have gotten the hang of it, it’ll be important to go back through your data to double check that everything is being entered accurately.  As with any procedural change, collecting Altered Status at intake may take some time getting used to. Explaining why it matters in the big picture can help staff appreciate how an extra six seconds at intake can save lives down the road.

How do you ensure that the data you are working with is as clean as can be?

Related links:
Download our Cat Sexing Poster (.pdf)
“Tip of the Week: Put It in Park”
“Tip of the Week: Follow Your Nose”
“Feeling Dirty?”

Tags: Intake, Research, Research & Data, Shelter Health, Tools

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