*** Please edit to fit your personal experiences.  This letter is long to make sure many possible topics of interest are included ***

Dear Councilperson ______,

My name is ___________ and I am a taxpayer of Kansas City, Missouri. Over 60% of Kansas Citians own at least one pet so saving animal lives is not only important to me - It's important to A LOT of people.

In 2009, the shelter killed 3,114 dogs and cats (1821 dogs, 1293 cats) - which is way more than the "100 per month" media communicated that Half Way Home needed to save in order to get to NO KILL. I don't know where this "100 per month" number comes from, but KCMO impounded approximately 7500 dogs and cats last year. The 90% Save Rate required to truly imply "No Kill" status would mean we should have saved 6,750 of them. This would require an increase in adoptions by 200 (not 100) per month.

There are two different ways to get to NO KILL-- and both must work together to achieve success. One way is to increase adoptions. Half Way Home is making good progress in this regard. The second, is to minimize the number of animals coming into the shelter. Kansas City is fortunate to have a great low-cost spay/neuter option for low-income citizens at Spay/Neuter KC. However, the other, major part of decreasing the number of animals coming into the shelter involves decreasing animal control's ability to seize health, non-problematic pets from homes for simple violations. Doing so results in more animals at the shelter and more problems at the shelter due to having too many pets to care for etc.�

There are a couple of city laws and policies that are making it much harder for Kansas City to achieve its no kill goal and I strictly oppose both:

1) Mandatory Spay/Neuter of all "pit bulls"

Of the dogs that were impounded, 21% (1086) were 'pit bulls'. 25% (270) of the pit bulls that were impounded were impounded for no other reason than because of the law passed in 2006 that mandated that all pit bulls be spayed or neutered. 686 pit bulls were killed in the shelter last year. If we could have prevented all of the pit bulls from coming in because of the ordinance, we could have brought down the entire pit bull kill rate by at least 25%. If you also assume that each 'pit bull' brought into the shelter replaced another dog that was there, you could have cut 'pit bull' euthanasia down 40% just by getting rid of the law.

PS: I DO support spay/neuter practices and education in support of spay/neuter practices, but do not support bringing in animals only because they are not fixed.


2) "Performance Standards"

In August of last year, the city instituted a "performance standard" that required animal control officers to meet a quota of impounding a minimum of 20 animals each month. In the first 7 months of the year, animal control officers averaged bringing in 303 dogs each month. In the final 5 months, it was 338 dogs per month. So with the 'new performance standards', city animal control officers brought in 35 more animals per month that Half Way Homes had to handle and adopt out -- that's an additional 420 dogs a year!! While some of these additional dogs shoulg have been brought in due to cruelty, neglect, and/or being strays, a large number of them are cause for concern.

It is likely, that we would have cut shelter killings by over 500 dogs simply by eliminating these two policies!

If the shelter is going attain and sustain success, it is not going to be enough to just adopt our way out of it -- we have to minimize impounds as well. We need to keep up with aggressive low cost spay/neuter programs (Kansas City is fortunate to have a great low cost spay/neuter program in Spay/Neuter Kansas City) AND abolish policies and laws that take animals out of safe homes. As long as we allow the current performance standard quotas, a decrease in impounds IS NOT POSSIBLE.

I sincerely hope that Animal Control and city council members will please work together to rid Kansas City of these ineffective policies that only result in increased shelter killing.

* Repeal the pit bull Mandatory Spay/Neuter
* Increase the pet limit (and don't confiscate healthy animals from homes that are above the pet limit)
* Increase the hold period of tame cats from 2 to 5 days.
* Allow people to care for feral cat colonies and actually encourage Trap-Neuter-Return practices.
* Get rid of the 'performance standards' (quotas) that require animal control officers to impound a certain number of animals each month. 
* End sweeps for non-issues like licensing and focus on cruelty and citizen complaints.

Thank you for your consideration of my plea. I hope we may act swiftly to correct these points, making both the animals AND the taxpaying voters in Kansas City much treated with compassion and respect. Elections are coming this spring and I will consider your action on this when I vote.

Sincerely

_____________________________

Voting KCMO Taxpayer

Animal Control Operations

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