Subcommittee Will Examine Animal Shelter's Euthanasia Rate

Evanston officials postponed voting on a recommendation to extend the city’s agreement with the non-profit organization that runs the city’s animal shelter after hearing two hours of impassioned testimony from residents and animal rescue volunteers.

The city council’s human services committee met Monday evening to discuss volunteers’ concerns about the CARE, the organization that runs the Evanston Animal Shelter’s adoption program.

CARE, which stands for Community Animal Rescue Effort, has partnered with the Evanston Police Department since 1987 to help strays and unwanted pets find homes out of the municipal animal shelter at 2310 Oakton St.

The pet rescue organization has come under fire after a consultant’s report concluded that too many dogs coming into the shelter are being euthanized, based on CARE’s evaluation methods of dogs’ adoptability.

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The issue has divided the animal shelter’s dedicated cadre of volunteers, some who think dogs are being unnecessarily euthanized because of misapplied behavioral testing.

Ald. Jane Grover (7th) motioned that a subcommittee be formed including members of CARE and volunteers opposed to current temperament testing, along with elected and city officials, before action is taken to extend CARE’s agreement with the city.

“I always regret that these situations make people feel the need to take sides,” Grover said. “If there is a way to head that off and this to a subcommittee … to see if we can secure an agreement with CARE that would extend the current agreement but also incorporate some of the things we all have concerns about.”

The measure to form a subcommittee was passed unanimously by the human services committee.

A city-commissioned study by the national humane organization ASPCA  determined Evanston Animal Shelter's annual euthanasia rate for dogs ranging from 34 percent to 47 percent between 2010 and 2012.  The city's animal shelter receives about 250 dogs annually, 150 of which are claimed by owners. 

The ASPCA study further recommended that CARE stop administering behavioral evaluations until it could be brought up to ASPCA standards.

A CARE-commissioned study by animal behaviorist specialist Janice Triptow also recommended that the animal rescue group review its behavior assessment protocol and expand its pet foster program.

Gail Lovinger-Goldblatt, a CARE board member and long-time shelter volunteer, told the human services committee that volunteers had the necessary expertise and used industry standards in in their evaluation processes.

She also compared the Evanston Animal Shelter’s euthanasia rate for dogs that fail temperament testing to PAWS Chicago, the gold standard in animal sheltering. According to PAWS Chicago’s 2012 annual report, 41 dogs were euthanized for behavioral reasons of the 2,711 dogs admitted that year.

Lovinger-Goldblatt said that, unlike PAWS Chicago, the city’s animal shelter didn’t have the luxury of hand picking dogs that seem the most adoptable.

“We love animals and we love dogs,” Lovinger-Goldblatt said. “We want them all to pass, but at the same time we feel responsible to our adopters and the community to ensure we’re adopting out dogs to the best of our ability, which we believe are going to be safe and loving companions.”

Alisa Kaplan, one of the shelter volunteers who brought the shelter’s “rampant euthanasia rate” to city officials' attention, stated that CARE’s testing was excessive. Further, two methodologies used by the non-profit group invalidated each other.

“Neither test is to be used to determine if dogs are to be euthanized,” Kaplan said. “Instead, the tests are to gather more info about the animal and combined with additional information and sources to determine the best course of action for that animal.”

Of the 100 dogs that went unclaimed at the shelter in 2012, CARE volunteers deemed 43 dogs adoptable and 40 dogs unadoptable in 2012, Kaplan added.

“That’s 46 percent,” Kaplan said. “The numbers are practically equal.”

Animal shelter volunteers calling for changes in CARE’s evaluation methods told story after story of dogs slated for euthanasia that were turned over to other rescue groups and placed in loving homes by Evanston’s animal warden.

Lovinger-Goldblatt said that the stories did not reflect “reality.”

Linda Teckler, chief animal warden for Evanston, who makes the final decision on whether or not dogs are euthanized, has placed 21 dogs on death row with other animal rescue groups.  

She began to question the failure rate of shelter dogs when behavioral testing revealed an apricot poodle named Claude "unadoptable." The dog is now living with Ald. Judy Fisk (1st).

“Prior to that, I thought they knew what they were doing,” Teckler said of the CARE evaluators. “They implied they were certified. Then it came to light that I should question it.”