How A Baltimore County Agency Embraced a Culture Change
Change is difficult. In government, it’s also complex and expensive. So, it’s rare that a government agency embraces sweeping transformation. But every now and then, it happens.
That’s the story of Baltimore County Animal Services (BCAS).
BCAS, located in Baldwin, Md., is run by the Baltimore County Health Department. As the county’s open admission shelter, it must accept every pet surrendered by a citizen or picked up as a stray by Animal Control. It takes in about 4,500 animals a year.
Its history is like that of all long-operating open admission shelters. Shelter animals were once the forgotten ones. Few people adopted. Euthanasia rates were high.
According to the Humane Society of the United States, in 1970, shelters euthanized about 15 million cats and dogs every year.
But a few shelters began promoting spay/neuter and adoption, cooperating with rescue organizations, creating volunteer and foster programs.
Word began to spread that real change was possible, and citizens in more communities called on their shelters to duplicate life-saving programs. By 2013, annual U.S. shelter euthanasia rates dropped to about 3.4 million.
A community call for change happened in Baltimore County too. Over time, officials took action.
About one and a half years ago, County Executive Kevin Kamenetz announced plans for change at BCAS.
Says Kamenetz, “We inherited a situation where the county’s animal shelter facilities and policies were outdated, and we heard the concerns of the animal advocacy community…we totally revamped our programs and approach and built a state-of-the-art $6.6 million shelter, doubling our storage space and providing a modern facility for the animals and animal adopters.”
BCAS created positions to coordinate volunteers, rescue and foster, and started a program for feral community cats called TNR (Trap Neuter Return).
To attack the root cause of animal overpopulation, BCAS began offering the public low-cost spay/neuter services. In December it will open its second off-site surgical facility, and expects to spay/neuter 20,000 pets a year starting in 2017.
Dr. Melissa Jones, Baltimore County’s Chief of Animal Services, says there’s been “a lot of culture change but also a lot of growth with the ultimate goal of increasing our live release rate.”
The result? If you remove owner requested euthanasia (a service offered by BCAS to the public), in the second quarter of 2016, the shelter euthanized just over 5 percent of dogs and just under 11 percent of cats. Compare that with the annual rate in 2014 when the shelter euthanized about 23 percent of dogs and about 63 percent of cats.
There’s always more work to be done and new improvements to make. But the bottom line is that Baltimore County has embraced the complex task of culture change and, in the process, has become part of the progressive shelter movement.
Just watch this short video to see more of what’s happening at BCAS.
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