Salt Lake County’s Animal Services has maintained its “No-Kill” status for the second straight year. The national industry standard is a minimum 90% live release rate for shelters.
Sandy Nelson is the communications director for the department. She says reaching the 92.8% level for 2014 with a limited budget was a challenge.
“That’s when you need to get creative and innovative with your programming. So we do rely on volunteers to help with some of our activities like helping to keep the animals socialized,” says Nelson.
The county started taking steps in 2009 to achieve the rating based on the philosophy that all healthy and treatable animals can be saved. Nelson says much of the future work will focus on helping all residents become good pet owners.
“And for the animals that do find themselves in our care, just being able to place them in loving forever homes,” Nelson says, “So that will be our challenge coming up for the next few years.”
Nelson asks county residents to become involved when they see what may be a stray. She says keep in mind the dog or cat is likely someone’s household pet.