| 02/26/20 | 02/25/20 | 02/24/20 | 02/23/20 | 02/22/20 | 02/21/20 | 02/20/20 |
| 02/19/20 | 02/18/20 | 02/17/20 | 02/16/20 | 02/15/20 | 02/14/20 | 02/13/20 |
| January 2020 Report | 2019 Annual Report |
This time last year, we were at the very beginning stages of assessing the Animal Resource Center’s operations with the goal of improving shelter management, increasing our live release rate and ensuring that our services met the needs and expectations of the community. At the time, the tasks we were faced with felt nearly impossible and we certainly had our work cut out for us. Now, twelve months later, I don’t even recognize this place. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of our team, we’ve done a complete 180; our efforts have resulted in faster and better outcomes for animals, much needed updates to daily operations, and more animals adopted into loving homes.
As of November 30, we’ve completed 88.5% of Team Shelter’s recommendations, leaving only 20 items in progress. Through this transformation, we’ve seen the impact on our animals, staff and the community. People are beginning to realize that adopting a dog from the Animal Resource Center means they are adding a healthy and happy four-legged friend to their family, and not the stereotypical vision of a shelter pet. In November, 138 pets found their forever home, 30 of which were adopted during our free adoption event “Send Them Home Saturday.”
Tomorrow, we celebrate the season with our adoption event, “Home for the Holidays.” The ARC, along with the Humane Society of Greater Dayton and SICSA, will be at the Dayton Mall in front of JCPenney offering low-cost adoptions in hopes of finding loving homes for our pets. If you’re interested in adding a furry friend to your family, there’s no better time than now – stop by!
As always, thank you to everyone for your continued support as we build toward a better future for all animals in Montgomery County. On behalf of everyone at the Animal Resource Center, Happy Holidays!
Robert Gruhl
Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| November 2019 statistics | December 20, 2019 progress report |
With the holiday season upon us, I’d like to take a moment to slow down and reflect on all the progress that has been made at the Animal Resource Center. We’ve faced a lot of difficult challenges since we began the process of turning things around and improving our shelter, and to say I’m proud of this team would be an understatement. In just ten short months, we’ve completed 86% of Team Shelter’s recommendations, leaving 24 items in progress and only one under review. I have full confidence that in the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to make the necessary changes and see the benefits of our hard work come to fruition.
At the forefront of these efforts are the hard-working and dedicated staff of the ARC. Day in, day out, they come to work with the mission of reuniting lost pets with their owners, adopting pets into new homes and serving their community. Just this past month, one of our Animal Care Providers exemplified this dedication by helping to reunite a lost dog with its owner after it had been missing for four months. While we love hearing heartwarming stories like this, it only shows a tiny portion of the work going on behind the scenes; in October alone, 110 pets were reunited with their owners thanks to the ARC.
We’re sure to face more challenges in the months ahead, but with the support of our community, we know we will overcome them. As always, thank you to the community, our rescue partners, our media partners and all our social media fans for your continued support. We’re very excited about the improvements to come and can’t wait for you all to see.
Robert Gruhl
Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| October 2019 statistics | November 15, 2019 progress report |
Over the last month, the Animal Resource Center has continued to improve to better serve our animals and the community. From partnering with various organizations to streamlining processes and improving workflow efficiencies, we’re making remarkable progress. As we begin to unveil our programs, some new and others improved, I ask for your continued support. It is only with the backing of our vibrant and strong community that these programs will be successful.
One of the programs that our team has been diligently working on is the foster care program. While we strive to provide the best care possible for every animal that comes to the ARC, the shelter is no replacement for a home environment. Our hope is to build a network of foster caregivers so that these dogs can have a break from the shelter, and hopefully, find their forever homes in the process.
As we enter the home stretch of 2019, it’s important that we continue to move forward and implement the best practice recommendations from Team Shelter. To date, we’ve completed 81 percent of the recommendations and 18 percent are in progress. With everyone hard at work, we’re making great strides and can see it paying off each day.
In September, 149 pets were adopted, 19 of which went home during the WilmerHale Paws of Fall adoption event. During the event, the ARC along with the Humane Society of Greater Dayton and SICSA partnered to find homes for over 50 animals. It was a particularly warm day, but thanks to dedicated staff and volunteers, the event went great! Along with all the adoptions in September, our team worked hard to make sure 111 pets were returned to their owners – our highest number yet.
As always, thank you to the community, our media partners, our rescue partners, and all our social media fans. Your continued support means so much to us, and, of course, to the animals.
Robert Gruhl
Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| September 2019 statistics | October 18, 2019 progress report |
This year has been challenging in many ways, both for the Animal Resource Center and our community as a whole. Through adversity, we will also have the opportunity to grow and rebuild better than before. The way our community came together to support our pets, and how we were able to give back, warmed our hearts.
As the holiday season approaches, we’re moving full steam ahead with the best practice recommendations from Team Shelter USA. We’ve now completed 75 percent of the recommendations and 21 percent are in progress. It’s exciting to see these changes come to fruition and benefit our staff, the animals and the community.
In August, 143 pets were adopted, 40 of which went home during our free adoption event “Clear the Shelters.” This was our first time participating in this nationwide event and we look forward to partnering with NBC and our local affiliate, WDTN, again next year to find loving homes for our animals.
In an increasingly “noisy” world, we understand the importance of effective and memorable marketing. Recently, we met with our team and began creating a marketing plan that will better showcase our animals for what they really are – loving pets who deserve a second chance. This will also include a new committee to focus specifically on improving photos and videos to showcase our pups. We’re all very excited and can’t wait to show off our four-legged friends and see them adopted into wonderful homes.
Robert Gruhl
Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| August 2019 statistics | September 20, 2019 progress report |
The Animal Resource Center has made some great strides in the last month. Most notably, we have hired a new Director of Veterinary Services to oversee all aspects of our vet clinic. All our staff is extremely excited about the addition of Dr. Kathryn Storm to the Animal Resource Center team. I have full confidence that Dr. Storm will help take our clinic to the next level, along with the rest of the ARC.
We deployed additional resource materials to support responsible pet ownership so dogs remain in homes rather than coming to the shelter. We’re also working on protocols for tracking our Foster program, which we plan to get off the ground soon. It has taken a lot of effort to get to this point, but we want to make sure we can deploy that program with as few hiccups as possible. The addition of foster care homes will greatly decrease the stress on pets being in the shelter and give many more a chance at finding their forever home.
I’m also excited that we’ll be participating for the first time ever in NBC’s Clear the Shelters event on Saturday, August 17. We’ve been working with our local affiliate, WDTN, in this nationwide event. The ARC will have extended hours on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., to offer even more chance for adopters to find that perfect pet. We hope to see a lot of empty kennels after that day with all our adoptable dogs finding their new home.
And once again, I’d like to thank the community, our media partners, our rescue partners, and all our social media fans for continuing to support us in our goal of finding new homes for these dogs. Your support means so much to our staff, and, of course, to the animals in need at ARC.
Robert Gruhl
Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| July 2019 statistics | August 16, 2019 progress report |
It’s sometimes hard to believe how much things can change in a short period of time. I’ve been at the Animal Resource Center for over seven months now, and I’m thrilled with the amount of support we’ve seen. Like so many others, we’ve been through a major water line break in February and the May tornadoes since I joined the ARC team. Through everything, I’ve been impressed with the dedication of our staff and with the support of the community.
We’re continuing to push ahead and make progress. Our staff has now completed 110 of the 174 recommendations from our evaluation by the public shelter consultants Team Shelter, who visited the ARC last November. We also had another month above the 90-percent live release rate, at 92.1 percent.
There were 150 pets who found new homes last month through adoption, and we’re excited each time one of the dogs wags their tail as they walk out the door with a new family. On June 22nd, we held a free adoption event, with fees covered through a generous donation from the estate of Miss Pauline Wilson. In that one day, 21 dogs found new homes.
Our staff also worked hard this month on identifying stray dogs who had come in from the areas affected by the tornadoes. To allow more time for owners to claim, we increased the hold period from the legally mandated three days to 10 days for unlicensed dogs from those areas. We’ll continue that extended hold period through July 15.
We’ve had a lot happen, and we’ve come a long way. I have no doubt that we’ll continue to move forward and work through the challenges, just like we have these last seven months. Thank you to everyone in the community who has supported and continues to support the Animal Resource Center.
Robert Gruhl
Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| June 2019 statistics | July 12, 2019 progress report |
I usually start these updates with a sentence about how pleased I am with our live release rate for the month. Although I am happy that nearly 88 percent of animals found their homes last month, there is even more to be thankful for.
Buildings within a short distance from the Animal Resource Center were devastated by the Memorial Day tornadoes that ripped through our area. We are incredibly lucky that all the animals housed in our facility were safe after those storms. We went without water during the boil advisory, but we’re so inspired by our community’s response. Immediately, and before we even asked for help, people were showing up with water and other donations for our pets.
Because we were out of water, we were unable to wash and sanitize towels and blankets, and most of those we had in our facility had to be thrown away. We put out a request to our community for donations of towels and blankets and had an overwhelming response. I am consistently reminded of just how much our communities care for the animals in our shelter. Throughout our changes at the Animal Resource Center, and especially in times of crisis like the tornadoes and the water line break in February, we’ve seen the community step up to help.
After the storms, we had so many people donating food, cat litter, water, and toys that we opened our doors to the community to take what they needed. Anyone affected by the tornadoes who had pets were welcome to take whatever they needed from our donation area.
The challenge we face in the coming weeks will be space at the Animal Resource Center. We’re working with rescues to help us place our animals into homes, but we’re also in need of adopters to give some of these animals a loving home, especially knowing we’ll be seeing an increase in lost dogs for some time after these storms.
Thank you so much to everyone who has offered to help. Like so many others in the area, we know we’ll look back on these storms as something that has made our organization, our staff, and our supporters stronger.
Robert Gruhl
Interim Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| May 2019 statistics | June 14, 2019 progress report |
I’m again pleased with a successful live release rate in April. We reached over 90 percent for the third month this year. There is always more work to do, and we’re continuing to move forward.
On April 13, we had another successful adoption event, with several businesses in the community stepping up to cover license fees so that the Animal Resource Center could offer free adoptions. We even had some adopters share their stories from the Spring Fling adoption event with us on our Facebook page. We really love being able to share those success stories.
Our management team has finalized our new contracts for fostering and foster-to-adopt. We’re excited to be able to get those programs off the ground and get more of our animals out of the shelter, either in a permanent or temporary home.
As some of you may have seen, we will no longer house or admit cats at our shelter. I know that some of you have expressed concern about this change, so I want to offer clarification on why we made this decision. First, our shelter was not set up to handle a large number of cats, so our accommodations are less than ideal. Most importantly, cats often experienced negative outcomes at the shelter, such as contracting diseases and developing behavioral issues due to the stress of the environment.
Finding alternatives for cats outside the shelter is part of our effort to direct all animals in our community to the right place with the right resources, which will ensure they have better outcomes. We will continue to serve the community by providing education and helping owners rehome their pet. We’ll also direct people to our partner agencies – SICSA Pet Adoption Center and the Humane Society of Greater Dayton.
I hope this helps underscore why we made this decision. We will continue to keep the community and our animal welfare advocates updated whenever we make policy changes.
Thank you for all each and every one of you do to serve our community’s pets!
Robert Gruhl
Interim Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| April 2019 statistics | May 7, 2019 progress report |
I’m continually pleased with our community’s response to the needs of homeless animals. During March, 134 animals found their forever homes from the Animal Resource Center. During the same period in 2018, 100 animals were adopted from the ARC. March, 2019 also saw 99 pets reunited with their families, and our rescue partners stepped up by helping 45 animals last month.
On March 27, we held a meeting with our rescue partners, during which we revealed our updated rescue application and packet. I heard concerns from our rescue partners, and in this updated application, we’ve removed the requirements for humane discourse, commonly referred to as the non-disclosure agreement.
Rebuilding relationships is a top priority for the Animal Resource Center. It is my hope that we not only rebuild and strengthen existing relationships, but also focus on building new relationships. There are many people in this community who care deeply for our homeless animals, and it’s only through a strong network that we’ll be able to expand upon our early success in finding new homes for Montgomery County’s animals in need. I encourage anyone who wishes to help to contact us.
We’re also continuing to work through the recommendations from the Team Shelter USA assessment from last year. I’m pleased that our team has reached 40 percent completion of those tasks, but there is still much work to be done. We continue to push ahead and do everything possible to make the Animal Resource Center a leader in the task of uniting pets with loving families.
Thank you,
Robert Gruhl
Interim Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| March 2019 statistics | April 5, 2019 progress report |
In looking through the most recent update for the Animal Resource Center, I’m delighted at our staff’s hard work to help our community’s animals. For both January and February, we’ve eclipsed 90 percent in our live release rate, which means more of the animals coming through the ARC are finding new homes, being reunited with their owners, or are heading to rescue organizations.
I’m consistently impressed with the support I’ve seen from the community. Early in February, we were nearing capacity at the ARC. We put out a call to the community through local media and followed with a Valentine-themed adoption event on Feb. 16. The response was incredible. We had 20 animals adopted the Friday before the event, and it wasn’t long into Saturday when all our adoptable pets had found their forever homes.
We also reached out to our rescue partners last month through an online survey. I’ve compiled those survey results, and I’ll be reaching out to those organizations soon to set up a meeting to discuss working together toward our common goal of finding homes for these animals.
Please read through our progress report and look at the Animal Resource Center’s statistics for February 2019. I’m proud to share both with you.
Thank you,
Robert Gruhl
Interim Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| February 2019 statistics | March 8, 2019 progress report |
I am thrilled to share with the community our most recent progress report. This past January, we achieved a live release rate of 90.3% and we found new homes for 99 pets. Those are the statistics I’m really happy about. As our live release rate has increased, we need help from citizens and our rescue organizations more than ever. Your partnership will ensure that we find loving homes for all the animals in our care.
We have started the process of reaching out to local rescue organizations to get feedback on our operations and services. I look forward to meeting with our rescue organizations to improve the trust and collaboration between our agencies, and to incorporate your feedback into our planning and process improvements.
We’ve also focused on promoting adoptions through Facebook and community events, and we will be hosting a special free adoption event on Saturday, Feb. 16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. here at the shelter. A generous sponsor has donated to cover license fees so all adoptions will be 100% free at this event. I’m looking forward to finding homes for all of our adoptable pets!
Please take a look at our detailed progress report, as well as our January 2019 statistics. I welcome the community’s input and feedback.
Robert Gruhl
Interim Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| January 2019 statistics | February 8, 2019 progress report |
While I have only been the director at the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center for about a month, I am so grateful for the outpouring of support and the earnest suggestions to improve the health and well-being of the animals in our care and those who care for them.
We have made enormous progress in a short period of time, but we still have plenty of work to do. I am truly looking forward to 2019 and seeing the full transformation, which has already begun, here at the shelter.
Please take a look at our detailed progress report, as well as our December 2018 statistics. Our live release rate was up to 89.9%! We also made progress on many of the recommendations put forward by Team Shelter USA. I hope you are encouraged by the progress being made when you review this report. I am committed to communicating proactively with the community on the changes being made in our operations and outreach.
Thank you!
Robert Gruhl
Interim Director
Animal Resource Center
(937) 898-4457
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| December 2018 statistics | January 11, 2019 progress report |
In October, Montgomery County announced a comprehensive strategy to evaluate all levels of operations at the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center. The goal of this strategy was to improve shelter operations, increase our live release rate, and ensure that our services met the needs and expectations of our community.
As part of this strategy, Montgomery County hired Team Shelter USA to conduct an objective, independent best practice review of the shelter because we heard the concerns of our citizens and animal welfare advocates. We are committed to being transparent with the community about this process and sharing this report is a step in the right direction. The final report is now available here: Team Shelter USA Final Report: Montgomery County Animal Resource Center.
The Commissioners and I were troubled and dismayed by the overall findings of this report. We care deeply about the well-being of people and pets in our community. We have made improving the Animal Resource Center and increasing our live release rate a top priority for our administration.
During this review, it became clear that the Animal Resource Center needed new leadership and direction. The County Commissioners took immediate action and appointed Bob Gruhl as Interim Director of the Animal Resource Center to improve overall shelter operations and ensure that the best practices recommended in this report are fully implemented. We trust Bob Gruhl’s ability to spearhead this effort.
We have already made progress on the 30 emergency action items listed in this report, which were provided by Team Shelter USA during their final review meeting, as well as updated our jurisdiction cat contracts and our euthanasia policy. Please click here to view a comprehensive progress report. Highlights from the progress report include:
We are committed to sharing frequent updates with the community as we continue to implement all of these recommendations.
Sincerely,
Michael B. Colbert
Montgomery County Administrator
Team Shelter USA is assessing Montgomery County’s Animal Resource Center from November 26-30. After the assessment, Team Shelter will provide a written report to the ARC with suggestions to both reduce intake at the shelter and increase the live release rate of animals who are taken into the center. Dr. Sara Pizano created Team Shelter USA, and her team includes Dr. Becca Boronat of the Charleston SC Animal Society, Cameron Moore from the University of Florida, and Dr. Kim Sanders of Anderson County (SC) PAWS.
On Tuesday, Nov. 28, Pizano held a community presentation on Team Shelter’s processes and the methods they’ve used to increase the live release rate in other communities, including Waco, Texas; Campbell County, Kentucky; Murray County, Georgia; and Anderson County, South Carolina.
Strategies to increase live release rates include: coalition building, targeted spay/neuter programs, community-minded enforcement, and managed admissions to the shelter, which including finding ways to help pet owners keep pets in their homes or helping an owner place a pet directly into another home.
Pizano’s PowerPoint presentation is available for download in PDF format.