Fix Tallahassee

Educating and motivating Tallahassee to achieve No Kill!

”Fix Tallahassee is a coalition of citizens in Tallahassee and Leon County dedicated to reducing the old-guard, high-killing of lost and homeless shelter pets at the Tallahassee/Leon County Animal Shelter through the use of proven, cost effective methods that have already reduced the killing of shelter pets in many other communities.

A growing number of open admission shelters are saving 90% or more of their animals without increasing their budget.

As of November, 2014, over 200 open-admission city and county shelters including Austin, TX, and Reno, NV, have successfully achieved No Kill status. The list is growing very quickly. If they can do it, so can we! Please help us put Tallahassee on that list!

A No Kill shelter saves all treatable and healthy adoptable pets. This means 90-98% of incoming animals are saved. Only animals that are too sick to be treated or too aggressive to be rehabilitated are humanely euthanized. A No Kill shelter can be open admission and accept all animals. The average length of stay can be shorter than a traditional shelter because animals are adopted quickly or placed into foster homes. Each of the above communities followed the same 11 steps to success.

We’ve been told shelters are forced to kill because there are just too many pets. This is not true. Every year 23 million people seek a new pet. Some plan to buy from a breeder or other source, but 17 million aren’t sure where they’ll get their new pet. Shelters kill 4 million dogs and cats each year. If we could persuade just 4 million of those undecided people to adopt from a shelter, we would end shelter killing. So even if 80% of the undecided group got their animals from someplace other than the shelter, all the shelter animals would still find homes! We need to change how our shelters are run to accomplish this.

Will it cost more? No, many of these steps actually save money. The No Kill Advocacy Center did a study that showed that No Kill success was not dependent on level of funding.

How long will it take? It can literally happen overnight once we change shelter policies.

There are 11 steps which have proven successful:

1. Feral cat trap-neuter-release program
2. High-volume, low-cost spay/neuter
3. Rescue groups
4. Foster care
5. Comprehensive adoptions
6. Pet retention
7. Medical and behavioral rehabilitation
8. Public relations and community involvement
9. Volunteers
10. Proactive redemptions
11. Shelter director who is willing to commit to all of the above steps.

LEARN how to make it happen!
GET INVOLVED to make it happen!

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