Question about animal shelter costs

Factual Questions
1

I’m trying to make up a problem for an English assignment but I need some semi-accurate figures to base my solution on.

What I want to know is…
If someone brings their dog to a shelter because they can’t deal with obedience issues (or any other reason really) and the shelter is now stuck with a hard to adopt dog, how much does it cost the shelter to care for this animal until it finds someone willing to deal with the dog’s issues, or until the dog is put down?

I’m trying to determine if it would be more cost effective for the shelter to offer to reimburse the cost of a 6 week obedience session, than it would be for them to take possession of the dog.

Anyone know any figures? I’m trying to get an answer from my local shelter but there’s no answer.

2

This is a really interesting question! Might do better in GQ though…

3

I was wondering that but then I figured that there’s no specific answer so here would be better.
I did get in touch with my local shelter. She said that just the entry medical costs are more than the cost of a 6 week training course. It can run easily over $300 just if the dog hasn’t been fixed yet. They all get flea treatments on entry and every month after.

So, I think it’s realistic that my hypothetical solution would be cost effective - assuming that the training works and the family keeps the dog.

But, my professor is a stickler for details so some real (estimated) numbers are nice.

4

Moving thread from IMHO to General Questions.

5

Do you also consider the broader effects if that were the general policy?

Would that encourage people who just wanted free obedience training to threaten to turn their dog over to the shelter?

6

Ah, yes. Once again, basic human nature rears its ugly head and thwarts a perfectly nice theoretical hypothetical…

7

I’m honestly not concerned about that and there’s a very good reason why.

This is a project for a technical writing class. I was informed that I have to have a real company with a real contact person for my client and I have to choose a real problem (overcrowding and underfunding). However, the proposed program is totally a figment of my imagination so that we have something to write our report on.

I even spoke with the Animal Shelter and we both agreed that the program is great to write about but hugely flawed in reality.

Luckily for me, my report is an investigative report comparing the 3 local training options. The actual possibilities for success of the fake program are totally irrelevant to my report so I don’t have to worry about it.
However, you do have a perfectly valid point so what I should have said is:

I think it’s realistic that my hypothetical solution would be cost effective - assuming that the training works and the family keeps the dog and wasn’t just trying to get free training in the first place.

8

I think another option to consider is the shelter offering free training to anyone requesting it.

I could see several advantages to this, such as:

  1. Greater annual donations (similar to the “free” car washes done for fundraisers)

  2. Fewer dogs released into the wild or left at shelters

  3. Fewer instances of animal abuse

  4. Training at the shelter may also increase adoptions since people will be exposed to other animals in need

Just a thought.