OUR CALL TO ACTION:

the shelter of the future.

It starts with leadership. Government leaders who oversee shelters need to remember who they work for. They should first seek to understand. They need to cultivate public goodwill and make an effort to communicate to their constituents. They need to overhaul staff compensation and incentive programs to focus on saving animals, not cultivating bureaucracy.

Likewise, shelter managers need to pressure the public boards that govern them to invest in modernizing both infrastructure and technology. These goals will certainly have the support of the public, not to mention the implicit encouragement of the animals they are meant to help.

It will take bold leaders to call for this change—people with the relationships to form a coalition, knowledge of where their systems are broken, an understanding of technology’s promise to automate processes, the skills to negotiate opposing viewpoints toward consensus, and the authority to make lasting changes.

Indeed, the animal welfare movement needs such leaders. What does the shelter of the future look like?

• It’s less of an animal warehouse and more of a community center.

• It’s less an arm of government and more of a support and education destination.

• It’s a happy place where animals are enriched while waiting for homes, and community members are educated and provided with resources that ensure their success.

• It’s a partner with other organizations that are focused on population health, eradicating human and companion animal hunger, providing free or low-cost health care services, and reducing the number of homeless pets.

The HASS (Human Animal Support Services) effort, spearheaded by American Pets Alive, is working with shelters to show what success looks like—connected,  data-driven,  and externally-focused—with the hopes of extending the resulting best practices to the entire system.

This requires vision. It requires leaders comfortable with change. It requires fresh perspectives. It will certainly require funding.

When I think about the potential for the extreme changes discussed in this guide, I don’t think about curbside pickup or digital screens. I think about a dog who sees someone approaching her shelter kennel. Her tail begins to wag and she starts dancing on her front paws, breaking into a happy pant as a leash is produced, knowing that she’s about to exit her kennel.

Where is she going?

The answer is up to us.