Businesses pick up slack for San Francisco's animal shelters

San Francisco was once the safest city in the country for homeless cats and dogs. In the '80s, the San Francisco SPCA pioneered programs that revolutionized pet adoption, including the country's first "off-site" adoptions, where shelter staff took pets to public streets, malls and parks. It also led the nation in free and low-cost spay/neuter programs for city residents.

In 1994, San Francisco's Animal Care and Control (ACC) was killing just under 6,000 animals a year. That year, the SF/SPCA signed a revolutionary agreement with ACC, in which they agreed to take any healthy dog or cat that ACC couldn't find a home for, and as many of the pets with treatable health and behavior problems as possible.

At first, the agreement, dubbed the "Adoption Pact," was a success. By 1999, the number of homeless dogs and cats killed in the city's shelters was cut to 2,916, including some pets who were too ill to be treated. It was the best save rate of any city in the country at the time.

But San Francisco didn't continue on the trajectory of the '90s. The agreement between ACC and the SPCA began to erode when an exception for pit bulls was implemented. When the SPCA's president, Richard Avanzino, left the agency at the decade's end, he was replaced by a series of ineffective leaders who began to dismantle the programs that had led to the city's golden age of lifesaving,

In 2008, an article in SF Weekly exposed the shambles that remained of the Adoption Pact. The SPCA had scrapped nearly all its signature programs, including those providing spay/neuter services and behavioral rehabilitation. It seemed, the article claimed, they were more interested in building a $30 million for-profit veterinary hospital than saving the lives of the city's homeless pets. A few months later, Northside San Francisco ran a cover story about San Francisco's rescue groups, small volunteer organizations that take dogs and cats out of ACC, get veterinary care and training for them, and place them in new homes.

In a video on its website, shelter reform group FixSanFrancisco.org states that in fiscal year 2008-2009, two rescue groups, Rocket Dog and Grateful Dogs, "adopted out more dogs taken from ACC than the SPCA did ... (with) annual budgets ... that are a fraction of those of the city shelter and the privately funded SPCA."

Worst of all, the group claimed, most of the pets they were rescuing were those the SF/SPCA, with annual donations of around $23 million, had deemed "unadoptable," often for very minor reasons like being overweight or shy.

Today, nearly three years later, the city is killing more than 1,000 homeless dogs and cats each year. The rescue groups are operating at capacity, their budgets stretched to the breaking point. And the San Francisco SPCA, rather than taking in those doomed pets, is bringing in hundreds of easily-adoptable small dogs and cats from other communities to fill its adoption center.

This is a community of passionate animal lovers. There are more dogs than children in San Francisco, and recent battles over the use of public space for canine recreation filled local news reports.

We love our pets, and don't hesitate to spend plenty of money on dog walkers, cat toys, pet food, doggie daycare and more.

It's no surprise then that the local pet-serving business community has seen the value in stepping up to fill the void left by the public and charitable sectors. Many of them, including Petco and PetSmart, regularly open their stores for rescue groups to hold adoption events. Local pet businesses raise funds in jars at their check-out counters, host benefits, and donate food and supplies.

Last weekend, Pet Food Express, the Northern California pet supply chain that got its start in San Francisco, opened a permanent adoption outpost of ACC in its Market Street store. All the pets featured there are cats and kittens slated for death at the city's animal control facility; all are available for adoption.

The opening was a huge success. The mayor was there, as was the head of ACC. Half the cats were adopted out the first day, and if the San Francisco location sees success comparable to that of a similar program at PFE's Walnut Creek store, every cat currently dying at ACC should instead find a home.

It seems like a no-brainer to me. So why is this the very first time anyone has opened a satellite adoption center for ACC's pets?

Lynn Spivak, the marketing and communications director for Maddie's Fund, a national animal welfare organization headquartered in Alameda, held that same position at the SF/SPCA in its heyday, and remembers a time when innovative adoption programs like those were the norm in San Francisco.

"We started off-site adoption programs in around 1980," she told me. "They were enormously successful for the SPCA for adoptions, awareness, and donations, and they definitely accounted for a third of our adoptions."

Off-site adoptions were so successful, she said, that "everyone on the planet has adopted the idea since then."

In 1987, the SF/SPCA partnered with Gump's, a landmark luxury department store in downtown San Francisco, to display adoptable pets in its Christmas windows.

"Their holiday windows were a signature for the store," Spivak said. "People couldn't wait to see what Gump's would do with their windows every year. To think that they'd put their top window designer into showcasing our pets was stunning."

The windows were so successful for both the SPCA and Gump's that they had to hire security guards to control the crowds, who had lined up for blocks to view them.

"It generated tons of adoptions, along with donations and publicity," Spivak said. "It was amazing."

Other cities picked up the idea, and featuring shelter pets in holiday windows is today fairly common. Gump's is gone now, but the SF/SPCA partners with Macy's in downtown San Francisco to show off its adoptable pets during the holiday season.

I'm glad they're still holding on to at least one of the great programs of their past, but here's my question: Why isn't the SF/SPCA still leading the way?

If they really wanted to honor the letter and spirit of the Adoption Pact, the SPCA could be setting up adoption centers at pet businesses all over the city. They could be asking non-pet businesses, like home improvement centers, to build some animal adoption centers of their own.

They also could and should be setting up shop in every mall in town.

Just two months ago, Maddie's Fund held an East Bay adoptathon that found homes for more than 2,000 dogs and cats in one weekend.

One of the event's sites was at Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, which donated space for several shelters and rescue groups to display their pets to eager adopters. Why not try the same thing out at Stonestown, which could certainly use the traffic during the current economic crunch?

"The whole idea that you bring shelter animals to high-volume traffic areas, places where people congregate, is a proven winning strategy," Spivak said. "There's just no downside."

Certainly Pet Food Express knows that. They're in a position where they can save pets' lives while at the same time bringing traffic into their stores. They are forming relationships with rescue groups, who can help send business their way, as well as with adopters, who will continue shopping at their stores.

Animal control wins. Pet Food Express wins. The cats, rescued from death row, certainly win.

The only losers are the ones who don't play.

Source: http://feeds.sfgate.com/click.phdo?i=25e895528a6f225c2d40f82f5a1da7b1

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