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Animal Shelter Advisory Committee Minutes - 04/04/2025 The Animal Services Advisory Committee (ASAC) Minutes Date: April 4th,2025 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Nicki Bacon City Official LRCA Samuel Jones Animal Services Operator Dr. Bryan Wade Veterinarian Michelle Pohlman Animal Welfare Stephanie Ingle At Large COMMITTEE MEMBERS ABSENT: None OTHERS PRESENT: Trailon Williams ACO Kennel Supervisor ASC Katherine Venable Sr Admin Clerk ASC Amy Fagan Director of Public Health I. CALL TO ORDER Nicki Bacon, Chair, Called the meeting to order. II. STATEMENT OF MEMBERS AND GUESTS PRESENT All members were present. All guest's names were stated, and none were missed. III. OATH OF OFFICE STATEMENTS Dr Bryan Wade, Michelle Pohlman, and Stephanie Ingle were sworn in. IV. NEW BUSINESS A. Shelter Update Ms. Bacon begins by stating we had a total of 3,048 animals come into the shelter in 2023. The total return to owner was 605, which made up 24% of the live outcome rate. Total transfer to rescue was 521 animals, meaning 21°.0 of our live outcome rate. Total adoptions for 2023 was 377 which was 15°'o of our live outcome rate. Total animals that were euthanized was 994,which made up 40°'0 of our outcome rate. Our total live outcome rate for 2023 was 60%, meaning total animals that left our shelter live. The Animal Services Advisory Committee (ASAC) Minutes Date: April 4th, 2025 The 2024 numbers were slightly better. Total animals that came into the shelter were 3,419, over 350 more than the year prior. Total return to owner was 621 which made 25%. Total transfer to rescue was 661 which was 26°•0. The total adopted was 378 which made up 15°o. The total euthanized were 872. Ms. Bacon verifies that the euthanasia numbers do not include feral euthanized or owner requests, as those are a service we provide so, they do not count against our live outcome rate. Our live outcome rate total for 2024 was 66°o. Which broke down is a 1°0 increase for return to owner. There was a 5% increase for animals transferred to rescue. Adoptions had no change as it stayed at 15%. Lastly,we euthanized 6°. less animals in 2024 compared to 2023 and 6°o percent may not sound like a lot but when you calculate those animals out of 3,419 it is a lot. Ms. Bacon continues by going over the 2025 stack up, which includes 2025 so far. Last year we brought in at this time 742 animals, and this year at this time we have brought in 700 (these numbers are Jan -Mar). Our adoptions are up 4% from last year. Our transfer to rescue is down 4°'o from last year but, our return to owner is up 2°o from last year. In addition to our euthanisia being down 2°o from last year. At this time the numbers are looking very good. The adoptions have skyrocketed. Last week we had 17 total adoptions in one week. The week prior to that we had 12 adoptions. Percent wise our total return to owner as of right now is at 28%. Total transfer to rescue is at 26%. Total euthanized is 29%and total adoptions are at 17%. Leading to our total live outcome rate as of right now is 71%, last year at this time it was 69°o so, we are already showing a 2% increase. Ms. Bacon asks if there are any questions. There are none B. Above Current Budget Ms. Bacon states this year we are proposing to add a new position, this position is an existing position but we are asking for a secondary. That being for an Animal Care Specialist, which currently Paige Morgan is in that position. We currently really struggle at the front desk, we currently have two senior admin clerks who in theory work at the front desk. We also have our Animal Care Specialist Paige and Animal Care and Adoption Supervisor Diann, they do owner surrender appointments with people, they do our adoptions, and they have to use the front desk to do that as well. With that being said, if we had somebody that is out, absent, or on vacation, being one of the sr admin clerks, the Animal Care The Animal Services Advisory Committee (ASAC) Minutes Date: April 4th, 2025 Team has to step in. Well it happens all too often than not, people get sick, people need to take their vacations, things happen. What we are seeing right now is our Animal Care specialist is not able to complete her duties fully. She is unable to give enrichment to the animals, in other words she is not able to give that "animal care"portion that her job is assigned to. She is basically having to fill in where we have right now. We only have one sr admin clerk, which we have been short of the secondary sr admin clerk for about 6 months, and that has put her behind on her work as well. Her job's main function is to do vaccinations on intake. If you haven't heard down in Forth Worth there is an outbreak of distemper so vaccination on intake is so crucial, especially in a shelter environment. When we have disease spread we have to make sure that things are getting done properly. As she is having to help out at the front desk , when we have 50 people coming in at one time, it's really hard for her to do her job. So Ms. Bacon is proposing this secondary position that way they can do their animal care specialist duties, they can give the animals the time and attention they need. In addition, we would also have someone who can focus on social media. Amy Fagan has done an experiment lately where she has really gotten on our social media and liked and/or commented to people on their reactions to things. Mrs. Fagan takes over to talk about her experiment. She states she is a scientist by nature and did this without the team's knowledge as a control group so,we in turn do not do anything different. She decided on the evenings and weekends during her free time she would go in as Animal Services and like, love, share, etc. Even going into the "Rants and Raves" facebook group, where people would say"Dont take them into animal services they are killers" then engage with people as us. Then she chose 3 dogs, one being Black Jack, and all three got adopted within a week with all this engagement. Our engagements typically within a 28 day span are usually around 200 thousand, they now as of yesterday are over half a million. So when she came in here and let everyone know what she had been doing and then seeing adoption numbers rise was great. Correlation between the two probably yes, causation maybe no but, that's enough for us to say people have different expectations now. They expect that you're on social media, they expect that you engage, that you answer questions, and respond to messenger messages. Having someone being able to do that will help us look like we care more, cause this team cares more than anybody in the world but, people are looking for that validation through facebook. Really looking to us to talk through that with them as a platform if you will. The Animal Services Advisory Committee (ASAC) Minutes Date: April 4th, 2025 Mrs. Fagan continues; Black Jack is one of the dogs that got shared 241 times which is amazing but very unusual for us. This dog then got adopted and then the owner went back in the comments and commented his new name with a cute photo. Some of the other departments across the state do this cute thing where they will post a dog who came into the facility terribly looking and dejected and all the sad poses. Then they post the before and after so, now they are gorgeous and happy and life is great! Those posts are super impactful. Sometimes we get the reputation of we just get the "left overs" or we don't have the"cute" animals or our animals have diseases. We have heard it all. This team works so hard to stand against that by having healthy animals who thrive and that we don't have to euthanize. We also have fosters now who take care of our sick or abused animals, which is amazing. So, being able to show those before and after would be great. We have also talked about putting up a"Win Wall". When you would go in and look at dogs you could see other successful animals. When an animal is here and sad and looks terrible, you may not see the possibilities of what is or could be. Mrs. Fagan states she strongly believes that if we have this other position it would help out in doing all these things. Mrs. Fagan states that last year she made the same proposal to the city manager, it went from Nicki to her to the city manager, who at the time was Darrron Leiker and he did not choose to put it forward to city council. So, she was able to defend it to council but, in his budget that came out immediately after it never made it to where council could make a decision on it. Right now this year, we have a new city manager appointed and we have our current interim city manager. It is going to be a very interesting time figuring out who makes those choices because the new city manager will start in June. At this time we do not know what the priorities will be or how much directors will be listened to and what they are asking for. She continues by saying that she has been able to have lunch with him (the new city manager) and he seemed very nice and likes animals! What is needed from all of us is if you know a councilor or if you're comfortable with making those phone calls, this is normally not encouraged but, this is the time as committee members if you know someone or can make that ask. "Hey they need another person"or"Hey this is the work they are doing", etc. Mrs. Fagan believes that sometimes we do such a great job that we are not on the "list". For example, the things that get negative attention like code enforcement, as she heard the other day during a strategic planning meeting that code enforcement needs more resources. Animal Services also needs more resources but, because we have absolutely cut down on the number of complaints, doing better with our responsiveness in the field (as we finally have staff that have been here longer than a year), we are doing a great job in the kennels, we don't get that negative attention. Sometimes money gets put where the negative attention is, we are not willing to be negative but, a new way will have to be figured out to make sure our requests make it at least to the council so The Animal Services Advisory Committee (ASAC) Minutes Date: April 4th, 2025 that council can make that decision. Again as a committee if anyone knows anyone that has that decision making authority or your comfortable emailing your councilor as a member of ASAC, Mrs. Fagan would encourage you to reach out to them. It has been frowned upon in the past to reach out towards council for this but she has told them many times that the staff do great but they are suffering. Having additional people to correspond with would help. Dr Bryan Wade asks as he lives in Lakeside City he does not have a City Councilor, is there a list of people he is able to contact? Mrs Fagan responds that the list is on the city's website and there is a list of mayor and council. Additionally even if you do not live within city limits they will still listen, we have people come to council who live in Burk and even who live in Oklahoma to talk about our own taxes. Michelle Pohlman states the office is in her district which is over by the base. Mrs Fagan states that that section is Councilor Taylor district. He was also on our side last year during the budget process, the issue becomes where traditionally the city manager makes those decisions. During Mrs. Fagan 26 years of being with the city she has never seen the council want to add something back in after the city manager has brought out the budget. It's usually that the city manager, in this form of government, really makes sure that that person is reflecting what the council wants. So, we are just trying to figure out how to move forward in this very odd environment. Again, it would be nice to have the support from the committee as this committee is appointed by them and it matters. Ms. Bacon adds this new position would also give us more resources to go to Petco and Petsmart and have animals out there for adoption. This position would be like a coordinator, somebody that would help us get more education out to our volunteers and to our citizens. Ms. Bacon asks if anyone else has any questions C. REVIEW & APPROVAL OF SEPTEMBER MINUTES The minutes from the ASAC Meeting from September 2024, were distributed and reviewed. A motion was made to accept these minutes by Michelle Pohlman with a second following by Dr Bryan Wade. The motion was carried. ADJOURN No date was set for the next meeting at this time. Michelle Pohlman motioned to adjourn the meeting. Samuel Jones seconded. The motions carried, all in favor. The Animal Services Advisory Committee (ASAC) Minutes Date: April 4th, 2025 1„.li.A., 644.04...._ 7 -aS- 2\-S Nicki Bacon Date ASAC Chairman Animal Services Administrator