837

In 2007, 837 dogs were euthanized by TAS - at least this is what the front page of the Toronto Humane Society website tells me, calling it "Toronto City Hall Council's Shame" under their "Breaking News!" banner. 837 dogs killed is 837 dogs killed and there's no justice in that no matter how you look at it but let's see how it compares with another city.

Calgary Animal Services is supposed to be one of the best in North America. It's garnered accolades from all corners of the animal welfare community (see here and here and here). Not that there isn't always room for improvement, but many people say that Calgary Animal Services is a model for how things should be done.

For starters, they've got an excellent website. It's well layed out, with lots of information concerning pet care, volunteering, the importance of licensing, adoption programs and of course a list of available dogs and cats. They do a great job of promoting senior dog adoptions and have success stories posted (though these need some serious updating as the last time was apparently 2005).

One big reason Calgary Animal Services is so successful is that the city has a very high pet licensing rate. In fact, all the funding for CAS comes from pet licensing. Their pet licensing program is so successful that they are able to fully fund a new 2500 square foot vet clinic where they will be able to spay and neuter dogs and cats on site. I suspect one of the reasons for the recent push in Toronto to get our pet owners to license their pets may have had something to do with the success of the Calgary model.

According to their website: "The City of Calgary enforces a zero tolerance policy on all unlicensed dogs. The fine for having an unlicensed dog is $250."

Calgary seems to have stricter enforcement of their animal control policies than Toronto does. When a licensed dog is picked up by CAS, for example, it is immediately returned to the owner for a fee. An unlicenced dog is taken to the shelter and before the owner can take it home, the owner is charged $250 for a first offence. Subsequent offences mean an increment in the fine of $250 per offence. So, CAS picks up someone's unlicensed dog a third time and that's a $750 fine. I've got no problems with that but I'm beginning to see how they get the funds to build an on-site vet clinic. It's license or else and most Calgarian dog owners (90% I believe) are deciding to go for the license.

Calgary Animal Services also has a very active outreach program, with staff going out to kindergarten classes to teach kids about responsible pet ownership. They're very visible in the local media, using newspapers, billboards, bus shelters and community events to get their message across.

It would be interesting to find out how much of the upswing in licensing was due to the enforcement of fines and how much was due to other methods of public education. Either way, it's working for them.

So, given all this worthy effort on the part of CAS to move their city to a more humane animal welfare model, let's look at their hard euth numbers vs Toronto's "shameful" numbers. Calgary has a dog population of 110,242 in 2008 . In 2007, CAS euthanized 314 dogs. The years are off by one but still, the approximate percentage of CAS euthanized dogs vs. general dog population is 0.285%. That's a pretty low number and it looks like CAS is doing a not bad job.

Now for Toronto. The estimated dog population in Toronto is 250,000. This number is found at the bottom of p.3 of this report which deals with Toronto's licensing strategy. The number of dog euthanizations, as stated earlier, is 837. This makes the percentage of TAS euthanized dogs vs. general dog population to be 0.335%.

So, 0.285% vs 0.335%, which is a difference of only 17.4%. If Calgary is the gold standard for urban animal control, I think Toronto's doing not bad. But now the trick with using statistics is all in the details and do these numbers really tell us how the inner workings of CAS compare to TAS? Well, no, not at all. I'm sure there are policy differences and operating differences (for example, Calgary Animal Services does not accept surrendered animals and that's a biggie for Toronto Animal Services). I know there are things TAS could learn from CAS, especially with regards to public awareness, and maybe there are even things CAS could learn from TAS. But the one thing these percentages do tell us is that when someone trumpets 837 dog euthanasias in one year, that alone is a meaningless number when taken out of context.

Of course this whole analysis only has bearing in our dysfunctional political world. To the dead dogs represented by even these ultra low percentages, there's nothing good at all about any of this and this is the infuriating part. Instead of concentrating energies on forming alliances to do the best for the animals who's lives are on the line, some organizations still insist on denigrating others as part of their routine P.R. philosophy. It's ridiculous and utterly human.