Live Release Rate and Animals at Risk

What these terms mean, and why they matter

The fundamental tasks we work on in ASPCA Partner Communities are helping the partner organizations:

• Sustainably increase the live release rate for the community's animals and
• Target efforts to the animals most at risk.

Read on for an explanation of live release rate and its significance, as well as what we mean when we talk about animals at risk.

Live Release Rate

Live release rate (LRR) is a formula that calculates the percent of animals that leave shelter facilities alive through:

• Adoption,
• Return-to-owner, or
• Transfer to another non-profit agency that can guarantee a home for all of the animals it receives from the transferring facility.

To get the most accurate assessment of a community's progress, LRR is calculated based on all of the animals entering the sheltering system in the community (total intake).

The ASPCA believes that live release rate is a meaningful parameter to indicate a community's progress toward improving outcomes for its animals. Live release rate is the percent of animals who leave the sheltering system for a positive outcome, such as return to owner or adoption.

Save rate is often equated with live release rate; however, save rate indicates only the percentage of animals not euthanized. Save rate does not reflect the number of animals still held in the shelter or in foster care. Animals still in the sheltering system are highly at risk for euthanasia.

With all partner communities, we use the ASPCA Animal Stats Dashboard data collection and reporting tool to obtain accurate data on:

• The intake and disposition of dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens, and
• Targeted spay/neuter and tnr programs.

Each sheltering agency reports this data every month so that together we can identify trends and determine what impact programs and strategies are having on increasing the LRR.

Animals at Risk

Animals already in the sheltering system are at risk for many reasons, including:

• Sheltering facilities may have to euthanize animals for space.
• Shelters may not have the resources to treat sick animals or to divert recovering animals, neonate litters, or pregnant females to foster care until they are ready for adoption.
• Disease outbreaks may cause animals to be euthanized.
• Animals may become behaviorally at risk because they develop behaviors in the shelter environment that prevent them from being adopted.

Certain populations of animals in the community are also at risk, including:

• Stray and unowned animals
• Intact animals
• Feral cats
• Dogs subject to community breed bans
• Animals whose low-income owners don't have access to affordable spay/neuter services, veterinary care, and pet IDs
• Animals whose owners cannot locate housing that enables them to keep their animals

Responding to Risk

These risks are present to some degree in every community. The factors working for and against resolving these problems are different in every community, however. That's why the ASPCA and our partner communities use hard data to:

• Identify specific risks and contributing factors in each community, and
• Craft appropriate strategies that will effectively reduce those risks.

Using ASPCA resources and expertise, we enable agencies in our partner communities to implement programs that we know improve outcomes for the animals and increase the community's live release rate. These include:

• Shelter wellness, including programs that address:
  • animals' physical, behavioral, and emotional health
  • sanitation
  • disease control and prevention
  • operations and flow
• Animals altered through targeted spay/neuter and TNR
• Programs and strategies that increase adoptions, such as:
  • ASPCA SAFER™ canine aggression assessment
  • ASPCA's Meet Your Match® adoption programs
  • large-scale adoption events
  • transfer programs that move animals to agencies within and outside the community who can readily find good homes for the animals they accept
• Return to owner and ID programs that get stray animals back to the owners - often without ever entering the sheltering system
• Safety-net programs, that provide pet owners with options for resolving problems that affect their ability to retain their animals
• Foster care programs that give animals with special needs time, support, and a safe haven until they are ready to be adopted

Tracking Results

It's not enough to launch programs and expect them to work as intended. With our partner communities, we continually monitor animal data to gauge the impact of programs. We evaluate the success of programs and strategies in specific situations and modify them as necessary to achieve desired results. We share insights from our experiences with other communities - and with the wider sheltering community via ASPCApro.org.