This lecture was presented by Dr. Kate F. Hurley at the Midwest Veterinarian Conference in February, 2016. http://mvcinfo.org/education/friday.html# The Million Cat Challenge is a five year, shelter-based campaign to save one million cats from euthanasia by standardizing five initiatives in North American shelters. This presentation is focused on Alternatives to Intake and would be most enjoyed by those already familiar with the Challenge and its initiatives. If you'd like to learn more about Alternatives to Intake, the slide deck titled The Million Cat Challenge will provide a nice starting point to understanding the Challenge and the five initiatives. To find out more please visit www.millioncatchallenge.org

1. The Million Cat
Challenge:
Diving deeper with
Alternatives to Intake

2. What would YOU do?

3. What would YOU do?
3

4. Why do people bring cats to
shelters?
4
In order to help a lost
cat get back to its
owner?
In order to protect the
cat from danger or
suffering?
To get a behavior to stop
that is bothering or
worrying them?
Because there is a
barrier to keeping the
cat and they want it to
have a new home?

5. Why do people bring cats to
shelters?
5

6. Why do people bring cats to
shelters?
6
“One of the biggest challenges we have isn’t
figuring out a solution to keep the pet in the
home, or private rehoming, but debunking the
myth that shelters are the #1 place for animals.
People honestly believe they are doing the
right thing, that there aren’t other options; the
responsible and best thing to do is surrender to
a shelter.”
Lisa Bassi, SF SPCA, San Francisco, CA

7. Alternatives to Intake

8. When to consider alternatives
• Underage
kittens?
• Feral cats?
• Owner
surrenders?
• Stray cats?

9. When to consider alternatives
• Any time you could
provide as good or a
better outcome for the
cat, the person, the
shelter, the community
by some means other
than intake
• Engage your community
as a safety net
• Reserve the shelter for
animals that can only be
served by the shelter

10. Alts to in for neonates
• Consider:
– The goal of the
finder/owner
– Shelter resources for in-
house foster/neonatal
nursery
• Are they really orphaned?
– If not, can they stay where
they are?
– If so, can the finder/owner
raise them with support?
10
Are they really orphan kittens?

11. What’s on your website?
11
• Be friendly but honest
about shelter resources
• “Wait until 8”
• Wait and watch for a
few hours
• What to do if:
– Friendly mom returns?
– Feral mom returns?
– No mom returns?
http://humanebroward.com/found-kittens/

12. The “Stray Kitten” Scenario
http://www.maddiesfund.org/assets/documents/Institute/Community%20Pet%20Adopti
on%20Partnerships_WEB.FINAL.5.26.15.pdf

13. Worth asking
• 68% of organizations
that were “extremely
likely” to ask
community members to
care for kittens
reported many or some
people agreed;
organizations unlikely to
ask reported only 33%
agreement when they
did ask
13

14. Take home messages
• Cultivate strong and
enthusiastic approaches
when asking community
members to care for
underage kittens
– Or do anything, really
• Find ways to offer
veterinary care and
supplies if possible
• Offer but do not require
training in kitten care
14
http://www.maddiesfund.org/orphaned-
kitten-care-how-to.htm

15. What could be cuter?
• Miami-Dade Milkman
program
• Animal service officers
deliver kitten care kits to
finders of orphaned
kittens
• No increase in field
service staffing, neonatal
care coordinator added
• Initially funded by grants,
then success used to
justify funding from
municipality
15http://aspcapro.org/blog/2015/09/21/they-did-it-offsite-neonatal-care-kittens

16. All the details
16
Half hour lunch n’ learn with the Million Cat Challenge: email
info@millioncatchallenge.org for registration info
The buy-in has been
incredible…the assumption
was that people wanted the
kittens gone, but really most
people just wanted the kittens
to be taken care of.

17. Alts to in for feral cats
• Cut out the middleman and
encourage community
based solutions
• Decentralize services by
local TNR referrals
• Refer to in-house “TNG”:
Trap/neuter/give back
– Ask with conviction
– Offer drop off services if
possible
– Weave into daily surgery
schedule
– Soft pilot for full RTF or as an
end unto itself
17

18. Alts to in for feral cats
• If no on-site or local
TNR option
– It’s ok to start by
stopping
– Create a plan over time
– Offer support/solutions
in the meantime for
coexistence and
nuisance abatement
18

19. Changing times
19
• Because of education now more readily available in our
community, the acceptance of TNR programs are
becoming more widespread. We now are able to explain
to people why feral cats do not do well in shelter
environments and how they can live better in the
environment they were raised on with just a little
support from a caretaker. Once we explain the reasoning
behind all this, they really catch on and it has opened
numerous spots here at the shelter for us to instead
take in cats that will be adopted or ones that really
need the medical care.
Sally Hubbard, Save-a-Pet, Grayslake, IL

20. The right tool for the job
20
• Sac Ferals serves as a starting point for complaints
about too many cats. Gone are the days of an animal
control officer immediately responding to a nuisance
call of too many cats, issuing citations and
impounding ferals. Working closely with Sac Ferals,
we instead ask for their assistance to triage these
complaints. Volunteers assist with those difficult
conversations, convince well intentioned people to
allow trapping and vetting…They are often able to
accomplish what a uniform and badge cannot.
Gina Knepp, Front Street Animal Shelter, Sacramento, CA

21. Alts to in for owned pets
• Resources for keeping
– Medical
– Behavioral
– Cost of care
– Life circumstances
• Resources for rehoming
– Rehoming readiness
(spay/neuter/vax/ID)
– Photos
– Flyers
– Web and social media posting
– Media posting (radio, TV,
news)
21
http://www.animalhumanesociety.org/a
dmissions/alternatives-surrendering-
your-pet

22. Helping cats think inside the box
(and other behavior issues)
22
http://www.animalsheltering.org/page/guide-cat-
behavior-counseling
http://www.animalsheltering.org/content/cat-
behavior-and-retention-course

23. Problem solving scripts and
systems
23

24. Rehoming, help!
24
Needs a home with no
other pets. She
becomes very attached
to her humans. Does
not do well with other
animals.

25. Helping rehome 
25
Looking for someone to
cuddle with on a rainy
afternoon? Che’s your girl!
You can’t help but fall in love
with this affectionate, sweet
lady who loves laps, head
rubs and quiet time. She can
also catch the red dot!
Better hurry and meet
her…she won’t be here long!

26. Alts to in for healthy strays
• Most free roaming cats
brought to shelters aren’t
lost pets
– Some aren’t pets
– Some weren’t lost!
• Most lost cats aren’t
recovered by a call or visit
to a shelter
• Even if there’s room,
admitting a healthy stray
may not be in anyone’s
best interest

27. Lost cat reality check
• Random digit dialed
national survey
• 15% of households had
lost a cat
• Of those, 75% were found
– 1/54 by visit to shelter
– 48/54 by returning on their
own or searching
neighborhood
• Out of 506 households,
18 cats were lost and
never found within the
preceding 5 years
27

28. Resources for finders
• Resources for finding the
owner
– Post on shelter website
– Lost and found facebook
page
– Third party website
– Scan for microchip
– Downloadable flyer to
print
• Resources for co-
existence
– Spay/neuter/vaccination
– Non-lethal deterrents
– Responsible care
28

29. Alt to in 

30. FOUND, FOUND, FOUND 
30

31. Web and social media

32. What sites do you like?
• Facebook?
• Shelter software linked?
• Custom in-house solution?
• Third party website?
• Smartphone app?
32

33. Finders, Keepers
33
• “When a stray finder calls, if we have space,
we welcome the cat. If we don't, we offer the
finder a microchip scan, free vaccines, food,
litter, a crate, etc. Person after person says to
us that they want to keep the cat and giving
them these items plus a scheduled
spay/neuter helps them to do so.”
Emily Klehm, South Suburban Humane Society

34. Dear Million Cat Challenge...
34
That all sounds great,
but how can we afford to
give people all those
goodies?

35. Smart investment
35
• We fund it by recognizing that preventing
intake saves us cost-of-care hours. By
managing our population, our adoptions have
skyrocketed because our population is
healthier. We have four PetSmart locations
that permanently house our cats and with
healthier populations, we're able to get them
there faster which increases our funding.
Emily Klehm, South Suburban Humane Society

36. Take Credit!
 Communicate to
staff & stakeholders
 Report help calls
and results along
with intake and
outcome numbers
 Still helping animals
 Still using resources
 Shelter software can
help you track

37. All In on Alts to In
• Small public shelter
– Private shelter does cat and
dog adoption
– Staff of 6, serving ~ 90,000
people
• Discontinued intake of
healthy cats
– Healthy owner surrenders 
private shelter for adoption
– Finders of strays  resources
to find owner and/or TNR
group in community
– Staff counsel community
members on coexisting with
cats

38. The new policy means
more work on the front
end for staff, who have to
explain the options for
people who have
unwanted cats in their
yard, for example, Mohr
says.
But the trade-off is
that fewer cats enter
the shelter, and
fewer get
euthanized—which
makes for a happier
staff.
http://www.animalsheltering.org/magazine/articles/change-better-chico

39. • People no longer could use the shelter as the “Easy Button” – a
place to drop off cats without trying to find their own solutions to
the problem, sometimes of their own making. So for example,
someone contacts us saying there are stray cats in their
yard/neighborhood. The old answer would have been: set traps
and animal control will go out and pick up the cats. This option
has been eliminated. Now we have a conversation…our job is to
help facilitate the public to engage in the desired behavior which
could be TNR or helping a neighbor with TNR, not feeding their
pets outside which could be attracting cats, making their yard
unattractive to cats in various ways, having a stray cat scanned for
a microchip, advertising a found cat on Craigslist, etc.
Real solutions
Tracy Mohr, Chico City Animal Shelter, Chico, CA

40. A whole new ballgame
40Intake ↓ from 1881 to 442, euthanasia ↓ from 527 to 88 (including ORE)
Initiated
2/2013

41. Letting the community step up
Word is out since we had a
gentleman come in saying he knows
we don't accept feral cats, but
where can he get traps to do TNR.
We have gotten a lot of support
from the media and the public, and
it vastly outweighs the people who
are against it.
41

42. It takes a village
42
Hi Dr. Hurley, You made a presentation in Chico on
December 18, 2012 about community cats, and TNR.
In response, myself and nine other awesome
ladies decided to form a trap-neuter-return group in
Chico that we call Neighborhood Cat Advocates
(www.neighborhoodcatadvocates.org).
We just tallied our final numbers for 2013 - we trapped,
neutered, and returned 683 cats. 683!!! We also
facilitated the adoptions of over 150 kittens that were
trapped, socialized, and became pets.
What a great year! Let's do it again!

43. Last month
43
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 6:37 AM
To: Kate Hurley
Subject: Re: Chico TNR - great successes!!!
Hi Dr. Hurley, I'm Shelly Rogers in Chico. We just
got our final numbers for 2015, and we TNR'd
1,026 cats in 2015!! That brings our total
number of cats TNR'd in three years to 2,778!

44. Dear Million Cat Challenge...
My question is always, "if we don't
take them, what will happen to
them? What field will they be
dumped in? What river or creek will
they be drowned in?" The
possibilities if we didn't take them
eliminated the possibility of turning
an animal away.

45. Initiated
2/2013
No measurable impact on risk

46. I get it
“Santa Cruz County
Animal Shelter is an open-
admission shelter,
meaning that we turn no
animal away.”

47. Reality check
• Population 822,553
• 1 pet cat/~4.1 people
• 1 community cat/~7 people
47
158,587 pet cats
117,508 community
cats

48. Reality check
• Estimated ~ 50 million
outdoor pet cats and 30-80
million un-owned cats in
the United States
• ~ 3.4 million cats admitted
to animal shelters annually
– Average of 1 in ~11,800
outdoor cats admitted per
day
– No meaningful change to risk
unless special circumstances
• Provide alternatives to keep
the cats safer, whether
indoors or out

49. Dear Million Cat Challenge...
How is alternatives to
intake not just
foisting the problems
on other
organizations?

50. Referrals that make sense
• Complementary services
– E.g. TNR group for shelter
without in-house program
• Cut out the middleman
– E.g. direct to receiving
partner rather than
transfer
• Specific focus
– E.g. breed, age or
condition specific rescues
– Including neonatal kittens
• Balancing resources
– Changes over time

51. Dear Million Cat Challenge...
We don’t have a TNR partner
we can refer people to and
we’re a public shelter, so we
still end up taking in ferals
and healthy strays for
euthanasia. We don’t like it,
but how can we turn people
away?

52. Just start somewhere
52
We took a very quiet approach. Since we work
for a police department my direct supervisor
alerted the Chief and the admin team of our
plan and we really just went for it. We made up
a brochure with some basic information. We
told our citizens we would take healthy
adoptable owner releases, babies that were too
young to survive, and the injured/dying.
Betty Cochran, Supervisor of Animal Services, Clovis Police Department, Clovis, CA

53. Let the community step up
53
I expected all heck to break loose BUT
starting this on December 1st helped as it
was the slowest time of the year for us
with cats.
I had many conversations about why we’re
doing this and the main one being we were
not going to keep killing healthy
community cats.

54. Let us help ;-)
54
Yes there are those that gave us the “we pay your
salary” and all the other threats citizens come at city
employees with. We countered some of the negative by
saying we didn’t just make this up. (Throwing ucd
under the bus) We were working with experts in
shelter medicine and other experts in the area of
community cat management across the United States.
That seemed to help give credibility to our actions.

55. A world of difference
55
Since we housed 1000 less cats in 2014 we were able
to spend time saving the little’s that we didn’t have the
time/staff before.
That was huge obviously for the animals but the staff
did an amazing job raising little monsters and getting
them adopted.
The other thing that happened is we had time and
space and money to rehab injured/special cases.

56. Same shelter, different world

57. Last week 
From: Betty Cochran [mailto:BettyC@ci.clovis.ca.us]
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 8:41 AM
Subject: Had to share
For the first time ever I got an email from the
adoption center asking for cats because the
beautiful community cat room was empty.
Now that was a victory in so many ways for
me….then of course I had to round up some cats for
adoption 
57

58. More questions for the Million
Cat Challenge?
???
http://www.millioncatchallenge.org/resourc
es/dear-million-cat-challenge#cat2
Info@millioncatchallenge.org

59. #ThanksToMaddie!
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