AWLA Hawk » DC Area Rescue Orgs

Progress Confirmed

shelterhawk — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 19:04:14 +0000

On March 22, 2010 — just under a year ago — Kay Speerstra resigned as AWLA’s Executive Director. As the animal-outcomes data attest (see ShelterWatch.org), she left behind an organization that dramatically underperformed leading national open-admission shelters when it came to saving homeless cats and dogs. This was in spite of the fact that AWLA had greater financial resources and received fewer animals than most of the more successful shelters. Clearly, AWLA’s lack of commitment and effort trumped its monetary and logistical advantages. As posts from last summer like where have all the kittens gone? and Arlington’s homeless dogs indicate, AWLA’s animal-outcomes performance did not start improving immediately after Speerstra resigned. But there were hints — an offsite dog-adoption event, an effort to repair damaged relationships with local animal-rescue organizations — that more hopeful days lay ahead. Those hopeful days are here, and acknowledgement and thanks for that are due to Joann DelToro and the AWLA Board. Many observers assumed the Board would hire an AWLA insider who would attempt to preserve the status quo. Instead they conducted a deliberate national search before hiring Neil Trent from the Longmont Humane Society in Colorado. After Trent arrived at AWLA six months ago, things really started to change. During his first six months at AWLA, the organization has: – launched a trap-neuter-return (TNR) program in partnership with Alley Cat Allies; – expanded its use of social media websites to promote its cats and dogs; – begun posting flyers to promote its adoptable cats and dogs at local vet clinics; – met numerous times with leaders of local rescue organizations to discuss how they can collaborate with AWLA; – begun planning to extend its foster program to include adult cats and dogs; – begun publishing its animal outcomes data on its website using the standard Asilomar format. These steps are just a start, but they show that Trent realizes that improving the prospects for the homeless animals in its care isn’t rocket science — it just requires implementing the same kinds of programs that the most successful open-admission shelters have been practicing for years. And sure enough, AWLA’s newfound effort is beginning to yield improved results:

Homeless cats	7/09 – 6/10	7/10 – 12/10
Adopted	64.1%	77.0%
Transferred	3.1%	4.2%
Died or Lost	1.9%	1.5%
Killed	31.0%	17.3%

Homeless dogs	7/09 – 6/10	7/10 – 12/10
Adopted	64.3%	74.3%
Transferred	3.9%	6.5%
Died or Lost	0.6%	0.5%
Killed	31.2%	18.7%

What a difference a year makes. AWLA’s turnaround is still a work in progress, but it’s clear by now that Neil Trent has set the right goals and has begun to drive the organization toward them. We look forward to further progress at AWLA, and hope that its local peers like the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria and the Montgomery County Humane Society are taking note. The homeless companion animals consigned to them deserve no less of an effort.

The Root of the Problem

shelterhawk — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:26:30 +0000

In its fiscal 2009, AWLA received $1,229,326 from Arlington County to perform animal control and manage Arlington’s open-admission animal shelter.

But as a private non-profit organization, AWLA also raised $1,031,897 in charitable contributions. Along with depreciation of $91,162, those contributions resulted in positive cash flow of $500,000 in fiscal 2009. If AWLA were a for-profit organization, its EBITDA would be an enviable 20% of revenue.

What is AWLA doing with the $500,000 it generated in fiscal 2009 (or the $632,000 it generated in fiscal 2008?) Is the money being used to save more homeless animals?

Based on the number of cats and dogs that AWLA found homes for or transferred to rescue during the last four fiscal years…

2009 — 1,098
2008 — 1,029
2007 — 1,049
2006 — 1,073

…it’s hard to see a correlation between positive cash flow and improvement in animal outcomes.

Could that be because fundraising is AWLA’s top priority, and saving homeless animals comes second?

I think this is an endemic problem when a private SPCA, humane society, or animal-welfare league handles animal control and manages an open-admission shelter under contract with a municipal government. The league (or SPCA, or HS) views every action it takes through the lens of how it might affect fundraising efforts.

Animals successfully placed in adoptive homes help the league generate contributions by providing happy-ending anecdotes and adding potential donors (the adopters) to the mailing list. But animals the league can’t find homes for — and ultimately kills instead — represent failure. If publicized, these killings diminish the league’s reputation and undermine charitable contributions. So it’s no surprise that happy endings are trumpeted on the league’s website and in newsletters sent to donors, while euthanasia statistics are buried in obscure tables, if they’re provided at all.

Domino is off-view at AWLA. What happens next?

Why doesn’t the league encourage rescue groups to take animals that it can’t or won’t adopt out? As municipally-run shelters have learned, the best way to get the attention of resource-constrained local rescue groups is to broadcast an e-mail with a picture of Rosie the coonhound saying “Rosie’s time is up tomorrow! Can anyone PLEASE give her another chance?”

If the league did that, its fundraising appeals would trigger cognitive dissonance. They would be heard in the context of stories about death-row dogs being pulled from the league-managed shelter, rehabilitated by a rescue group, and adopted into a loving home… anecdotes demonstrating that due to their willingness to invest time and money, the rescue groups were succeeding where the league had failed. Why wouldn’t the charitable contribtutions then start swinging toward the rescue groups instead of the league?

Taken to an extreme, if rescue groups were given access to all stray and surrendered cats and dogs received by the league’s open-admission shelter, maybe a network of these groups would eventually pull all the healthy and treatable animals, leaving the league essentially responsible for animal control and euthanasia of the least adoptable animals. That’s a hard story to sell to potential donors.

So at some level, non-profits that handle animal control and manage an open-admission shelter have an incentive to hold rescue organizations at arm’s length, and to simultaneously hide statistics on the number of animals they end up killing.

By contrast, an open-admission shelter funded entirely by the municipal government doesn’t pursue charitable contributions, so it doesn’t have the same motivation to hide euthanasia statistics. It can blast out Rosie’s picture with the caption “only three days left!” to spur a response from rescue groups that already have their hands full.

Knowing that it has limited ability to find homes for the animals in its care, a municipal shelter has every incentive to offer animals to any rescue group willing to take them; each cat or dog pulled is one fewer animal the shelter has to care for, or eventually kill. The municipal shelter doesn’t have to worry that transferring an animal might also mean transferring a possible happy ending — and a possible stream of charitable contributions — along with it.

This perceived conflict between the goals of maximizing charitable contributions and saving as many homeless animals as possible is, in my view, a core reason that non-profits like the AWLAs of Arlington and Alexandria and the Montgomery County Humane Society save a much lower percentage of their homeless animals than organizations that collaborate closely with the municipal pound but don’t manage it — like Richmond SPCA and the Nevada Humane Society.

RSPCA and NHS don’t have to worry about killing unwanted surrenders or strays. Instead they focus on pulling as many animals as they can from the pound, then use proven programs like foster care and adoption events to find homes for them, on the assumption that if they save enough animals, the fundraising will take care of itself.

That seems like the best approach. Let the local government manage animal control and maintain the municipal shelter. And give a full spectrum of animal welfare organizations — from SPCAs and humane societies managing limited-admission shelters to foster-care networks to breed-specific rescue groups — access to all the stray and surrendered cats and dogs, so they can pull, nurture, and promote any animal.

Killing animals without giving anyone a chance to save them is inhumane. Every homeless cat or dog consigned to a shelter that kills unwanted animals at least deserves the chance to be seen by everyone who might be willing to help.

Out of the Frying Pan…

shelterhawk — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:57:16 +0000

Last weekend AWLA transferred five of its dogs to Loudoun County Animal Control. Four of them — Buddy, Buttercup, Hannah, and Sophera — are currently listed as adoptable on the LCAC website. All four had been “on view” at AWLA for about six weeks without attracting adopters.

To its credit, AWLA first offered these dogs to two local rescue organizations, but both were at full capacity. While each group had recently accepted a difficult dog from AWLA, they both work primarily with rural high-kill shelters. That’s partially out of necessity, because until recently AWLA had no interest in transferring its dogs to rescue groups. If AWLA now wants to work with non-breed-specific rescue organizations, it needs to cast a wider net. As we’ve noted before, AWLA has other options it could pursue for its long-tenured dogs. It could promote them by staging adoption events and taking them out into the community, by posting flyers in neighborhood venues, and by advertising them online. And it could circulate them through its own network of foster homes — if AWLA made the effort to develop a network of dog fosterers, the way the rescue organizations do. Both of these approaches are used by the country’s most successful open-admission shelters. Instead, AWLA transferred five dogs to the Loudoun County shelter. According to ShelterWatch, here’s how LCAC’s kill rate for homeless dogs in 2009 compared to that of three similarly-sized open-admission shelters.

Homeless dogs, 2009	State	Outcomes	Killed
Tompkins County SPCA	NY	376	8.2%
City of Montrose Animal Control	CO	412	11.2%
Culpeper County Animal Control	VA	376	13.5%
Loudoun County Animal Control	VA	457	54.3%

Out of 39 shelters listed on ShelterWatch, LCAC ranked 36th; only three shelters killed a higher percentage of their dogs. Let’s hope Buddy, Buttercup, Hannah, and Sophera make it out of the Loudoun shelter alive. If they don’t, AWLA should be considered complicit in their deaths.

Glimmers of Hope

shelterhawk — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:11:20 +0000

Earlier this week, AWLA invited its volunteers to offer feedback and suggestions at an evening meeting hosted by the President of its Board of Directors. To anyone but an experienced AWLA volunteer, this gesture might sound unremarkable, but it actually represents a profound break with AWLA’s culture of the past several years.

As recently as a few months ago, volunteers (kitten fosterers for example) were told not to seek help or suggestions from each other when problems arose, but to interact exclusively with the volunteer coordinator — despite the fact that the volunteer coordinator was often unable or unwilling to respond in a timely fashion.

Suggestions or critiques about volunteer programs were discouraged, and the most experienced and knowledgable volunteers were periodically marginalized or dismissed — presumably because they might point out shortcomings in AWLA’s modus operandi.

It would be nice to think that the arrival of a new Executive Director will allow AWLA to reboot its culture, and that the new ED will replace any staffers too invested in AWLA’s traditional circle-the-wagons mentality. We’ll see. This week’s meeting with volunteers provides a glimmer of hope.

Other AWLA critics are hopeful too. Here’s an excerpt from the letter that Arlington-based animal-welfare advocate Debbie Marson sent to AWLA’s Board President last week:

…I wanted to let you know that AWLA released a dog, Justice, to me last week. He is a gorgeous German Shorthaired Pointer mix. He had been in the shelter for about two months and [redacted] contacted A Forever Home (ed: a local rescue organization) to see if we could take him. I was really pleased that she contacted us. It looked like AWLA stopped working with AFH about a year and a half ago. I’m glad that we are working together again.

FYI, Justice is doing great. My pack of dogs are teaching him the life skills he needs. I don’t want to jinx anything, but I do have a pending application on him and will let you know if it goes through.

Also, I want to applaud you and the shelter for some significant events recently. First, I learned that AWLA treated a heartworm-positive dog and she is now better and is available for adoption. She was offered to a rescue group (not AFH) several months ago but they could not afford her treatment. We asked if AWLA would even split the cost of treatment with us and Kay said “no”. The rescue group tried to find a way to take her and I had a friend who was willing to foster her, but it never happened. I just learned that AWLA kept that dog and gave her the treatment she needed. I was VERY glad to see that AWLA saved this girl’s life.

Second, it looks like the kennels have had a lot more dogs than last year. I watch the site regularly and last year it was common to see an average of 5-7 dogs a day there. Now it looks like about 12-15. It appears that AWLA is giving the dogs more of a chance.

I’m truly grateful for these steps.

Debbie

Whether AWLA’s recent willingness to listen to its volunteers and begin collaborating with rescue groups is due to the online criticism the organization has received, to the ongoing change in leadership, or to something else, it’s cause for optimism.

The potential for AWLA to emulate the country’s most successful animal shelters remains, and we hope AWLA’s Board hires an Executive Director who is committed to meeting the standard set by shelter directors in Tompkins County, Charlottesville-Albemarle, Richmond, Reno, Boulder and elsewhere.

Where’s the Effort?

shelterhawk — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:07:07 +0000

Here’s an excerpt from the most recent posting on AWLA’s blog, which is dated April 27, 2010:

Shadow came to the League in March 2009 because his owner could no longer care for him. He was five years old, thin, and had a chronic skin condition that caused patches of fur to fall out. After we shaved down his fur, began treating the skin condition, and neutered him, he became available for adoption. But few potential adopters took interest in him.

Finally, at the end of June 2009, an experienced chow chow owner saw Shadow on our Web site. She came in to meet him and fell in love with his mellow personality. Since July 2009 Shadow has enjoyed a stable and loving home.

So after treating Shadow for malnourishment and a skin condition, AWLA neutered him and put him on view for adoption. An experienced chow owner discovered him on the AWLA website, loved his mellow personality, and took him home. Sounds like a real success story, right? Then what’s wrong with this picture?

To me, the telling phrase in the blog entry is “few potential adopters took interest in him.” Why didn’t Shadow attract more interest? He’s a good-looking boy with a mellow personality and a backstory that would trigger sympathy from many adopters.

In my view, the key reason Shadow attracted few potential adopters is that AWLA makes essentially no effort to attract adopters for its dogs.

While DC-area rescue groups continually stage adoption events, promote their dogs on Craigs List, recruit foster parents (who then promote their foster dogs to their friends), and post flyers on neighborhood bulletin boards, AWLA settles for passively listing its adoptable dogs on its website — via the PetHarbor shelter-management software that does that automatically.

In a region with dozens of rescue organizations and shelters showcasing adoptable dogs, AWLA’s dogs are practically invisible. Day after day they sit in their cinder-block and chain-link kennels, awaiting a trickle of visitors. Luckily, a few dedicated volunteers work hard to exercise and socialize the dogs, but one or two brisk walks per day is no substitute for the attention and support AWLA’s dogs would get in foster homes.

Where is AWLA’s foster program for dogs that have spent too many days on view at the shelter, waiting for a home? It doesn’t exist. No wonder dogs like Shadow become depressed and less adoptable over time.

From the AWLA blog entry, we can infer that Shadow spent about 90 days on view at the shelter, which the entry implied was a long time. But look at three of the 14 dogs currently awaiting adoption at AWLA.

Braxton has been on view at AWLA for the last 58 days.

Cassie has been on view at AWLA for the last 84 days.

And Yali has been on view at AWLA for the last 108 days.

Don’t Yali, Cassie, and Braxton deserve the relief a foster home could provide, or the improved odds they’d gain if AWLA tried as hard to find adopters for them as other organizations with far fewer resources do for their homeless dogs?

Shadow was adopted after three months at the shelter, but that was attributable to luck. Maybe a little effort would be more effective.

Another Missing Ingredient

shelterhawk — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:17:35 +0000

Last week I joined volunteers from seven local animal-rescue groups who attended an evening meeting hosted by the Fairfax County Animal Shelter. The meeting was arranged by FCAS managers who wanted to know how they could work more closely with the rescue groups to facilitate cat adoptions. What, our hosts asked us, could they do to make it easier for the rescue groups to receive cats from FCAS during periods when the shelter was taking in more cats than it could handle? How could they help the participating groups stage adoption events? Would any of them be interested in using the FCAS classroom on weekends to showcase their cats? (Absolutely.) What DC-area clinics were currently providing the most competent and cost-effective spay/neuter services? How many cats did the different rescue groups receive per year, and where did they get them from? Who (in addition to FCAS) was participating in local TNR (trap-neuter-return) programs? And much more. The meeting lasted for two hours and could easily have run longer, since it provided a forum for the rescue groups to parameterize FCAS, for FCAS to learn from the groups, and for the groups to learn from each other. It’s the kind of event that should happen at least twice a year. When was the last time a comparable exchange of information was sponsored by the AWLs of Arlington or Alexandria? How about “never.” I’m actually not sure it’s never happened, but when I asked veteran volunteers at Homeward Trails and A Forever Home, no one could remember a comparable outreach to local rescue groups. A few rescue groups have been prodding AWL of Arlington for years to collaborate, but most have dismissed the organization as insular and intransigent, and gone on to work closely with rural high-kill shelters that are overflowing with animals and greatly appreciate the opportunity to transfer some of them to DC-area organizations. So why do the two AWLAs have no meaningful collaboration with local rescue groups that on a combined basis adopt out several times as many cats and dogs per year as they do? I think the root of the problem is that the AWLAs have evolved over decades (both were founded in the 1940s) into organizations with well-developed donor networks and significant endowments. Despite their mission statements, it’s hard not to conclude that the true mission of these organizations is to nurture and develop their endowments. Anecdotes about successful adoptions are used to pursue that goal. At best, rescue organizations are a distraction, at worst they’re potential competitors for charitable contributions. On the AWL of Arlington website the spotlight is currently on the upcoming Walk for the Animals 2010, the organization’s biggest fundraising event of the year. AWLA staffers spend months preparing for the Walk — when it’s done, the focus turns to Catsino Night, the second-biggest fundraising event of the year. The current issue of AWLA’s quarterly Pawpourri newsletter is all about the Walk, donations, bequests, and (you guessed it) Catsino Night. How many articles in Pawpourri or on the website about upcoming adoption events or promotions? Zero. How many about working with rescue groups? Zero. On recruiting new foster families for dogs and cats that spend week after week growing depressed (and less adoptable) at the shelter? Zero. Trap-neuter-return efforts? Zero. None of the programs that progressive shelters have implemented to achieve better animal outcomes get any attention in AWLA’s communications efforts. The results speak for themselves.

% of Homeless Animals Transferred to Rescue Organizations in 2009
		Dogs	Cats	Total
	Fairfax Cty Animal Shelter	14.6%	11.4%	12.8%
	AWL of Arlington	1.8%	1.2%	1.4%
	AWL of Alexandria	1.8%	0.4%	0.9%

Unlike the shelters run by the AWLs of Arlington and Alexandria, the Fairfax shelter is a municipal facility that doesn’t benefit from substantial private donations and a significant endowment. It has only one focus — juggling the thousands of animals it receives every year and trying to save as many as it can. Who deserves your contributions more?

A Missing Ingredient

shelterhawk — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:56:53 +0000

Last year over 2,000 dogs and cats found homes through the Arlington-based Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation.

That compares with 1,080 dogs and cats adopted from AWLA in its fiscal 2009 and 1,081 from the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria in calendar 2009. (The resemblance between the two AWLAs is eerie, no?)

Lost Dog has less than half the revenue and a tenth of the assets that the two AWLAs each possess, but it does have one critical advantage over its municipally-funded counterparts — a volunteer army of dog and cat fosterers.
Here’s a view.

While the two AWLAs confine their fostering operations to kittens, puppies, and an occasional sick or recovering adult, Lost Dog and other local rescue non-profits (like Homeward Trails and A Forever Home) use fostering as a strategy both to find homes for cats and dogs and to sustain and strengthen the organization. Dogs and cats placed in nurturing foster homes become healthy, confident, and affectionate over time, and that makes them good candidates for adoption.

When one of these animals finds a loving home, its grateful adoptive family often helps promote Lost Dog, and may end up volunteering for or contributing to the organization directly. Success breeds success, and Lost Dog can focus more of its effort on saving dogs and cats and less on soliciting donors.

By contrast, dogs and cats in a shelter environment often become depressed, anxious, less healthy, and emotionally unpredictable. This happens at AWLA despite the best efforts of volunteers to befriend, socialize, and exercise the animals on view for adoption. It’s just difficult for a dog or cat to show its full potential when it’s confined to a small kennel for weeks on end.

And shelter dogs and cats that don’t show well generally don’t get adopted. Ultimately most of these unclaimed animals are killed, much as Nico would have been killed without the intervention of rescuers. And that means the shelter doesn’t gain the advocacy and support that a successful adoption would have generated.

For the AWLAs (Arlington and Alexandria) a full-fledged fostering program for adult dogs and cats is a critical missing ingredient. As the rescue organizations will confirm, building and managing a fostering program is hard work, but it’s work that greatly strengthens the organization and improves the prospects for the animals in its care.

Most importantly, it’s what our homeless and friendless dogs and cats deserve.

An Open Letter to the AWLA Board of Directors

shelterhawk — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:44:40 +0000

Dear AWLA Board,

Arlington County’s animal-welfare advocates applaud you for seeking new leadership at AWLA. Under the right Executive Director, AWLA can make Arlington’s animal shelter one of the most effective and compassionate in the country. Accomplishing that will require, among other tasks:

- using the standard Animal Statistics Table designed by Maddie’s Fund to track animal outcomes — and then publishing the annual results on the AWLA website. When performance isn’t measured and tracked, it rarely improves.

- implementing Oreo’s Law, which will end the unnecessary killing of AWLA’s healthy or treatable companion animals.

- partnering with less-affluent DC-area shelters to (when cages are available) accept cats and dogs that these shelters might otherwise have to kill for space.

- expanding AWLA’s foster program to include cats and dogs, not just kittens and puppies.

- working with local rescue organizations to transfer AWLA animals into affiliated foster programs, and in urgent situations to allow short-term boarding of animals fostered by those organizations.

- joining with rescue organizations to stage dog-adoption events, some of which could be held at AWLA’s facility.

- developing and supporting a trap-neuter-return (TNR) program for Arlington’s feral cats, possibly in collaboration with one or more local rescue organizations.

And more.

These are all suggestions that have been made repeatedly to AWLA management over the years (by both advocates and critics) and consistently ignored.

AWLA’s emphasis on fundraising over animal care — in combination with a circle-the-wagons mentality that has intensified over the last few years — has yielded the depressing animal-outcomes results chronicled on this website. All of AWLA’s current managers are steeped in this culture of minimal effort and denial, so AWLA’s new leadership must come from outside the organization.

As AWLA’s Board begins to search for a new Executive Director, it’s critical that it solicit advice from progressive shelters and animal-rescue organizations that have already tackled the challenges AWLA faces now.

We’ll provide a list of organizations that could offer guidance to AWLA’s search committee in an upcoming post. Readers are encouraged to post suggestions for that list (with links provided) in the comments section below.

What’s Possible, Part Two

shelterhawk — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:22:25 +0000

Today, the Animal Welfare League of Arlington confirms the resignation of Kay Speerstra, Executive Director, effective March 31, 2010.

“We thank Kay for her service to the League and wish her the best,” said Joanne Del Toro, President of the Board of Directors.

This announcement was posted on the AWLA website and e-mailed to AWLA volunteers about two hours ago.

With a single step, the AWLA Board has dramatically improved the prospects for Arlington’s homeless companion animals. It’s now possible — even realistic — to imagine AWLA managing one of the country’s most effective animal shelters and matching the standard set by organizations like Tompkins County SPCA, Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA, and the Nevada Humane Society.

The critical ingredients have long been here: funding, facilities, an engaged and compassionate populace, and a wealth of dedicated and experienced animal-rescue organizations that can serve as partners and sources of talent.

What’s vital now is recruiting an Executive Director for AWLA who can communicate the vision — that Arlington County should set the national standard for the compassionate treatment of wildlife and homeless companion animals — and marshall a team of committed employees and volunteers to make that happen.

As it searches for a new Executive Director, AWLA’s Board should solicit suggestions from long-established DC-area rescue organizations, from successful local peers like Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA and Richmond SPCA, and from the leading national organizations committed to progressive animal sheltering, like Maddie’s Fund and the No Kill Advocacy Center.

With the right leadership, AWLA can realize its potential and help the country’s best shelters chart the way forward in the years ahead.

…

Sic Semper Tyrannis. This post is dedicated to Spike.

Pay for Underperformance

shelterhawk — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:39:47 +0000

If you haven’t been following our Yardsticks series, here’s the recap that compares animal-outcomes data for AWLA with the most recent available data for selected peer shelters. Because AWLA saves a much lower percentage (and kills a much higher percentage) of its homeless animals than the other shelters listed, you might hope AWLA’s Board of Directors wouldn’t reward AWLA management for its unimpressive performance. That hope would be in vain. The numbers below reflect FY2009 data for AWLA and CY2008 data for the other organizations, and are drawn from Form 990 filings and annual animal-outcomes reports.

Organization	Location	Homeless cats and dogs saved per $100 of Exec Director compensation
NHS	Reno, NV	7.3
ACHS	Gainesville, FL	3.9
CASPCA	Charlottesville, VA	3.9
DCHS	Madison, WI	3.9
RSPCA	Richmond, VA	3.3
TCSPCA	Ithaca, NY	2.6
AWLA	Arlington, VA	1.0

Why don’t Arlington taxpayers get their money’s worth from AWLA? Imagine how AWLA’s animal-outcomes data might change if its management was paid based on the organization’s effectiveness at saving animals. How many more companion animals would survive to find forever homes if AWLA scrapped its Executive Director’s guaranteed $109K salary and benefits and instead paid her $50 for every cat, dog, bunny, or ferret that AWLA successfully adopted out or transferred to a rescue organization or foster home? Instead, half of AWLA’s cat and dog cages sit empty week after week, while less-affluent shelters within a few hours drive beg cash-strapped DC-area rescue groups to take animals that the shelters will otherwise have to kill for space. And when few potential adopters visit AWLA’s dogs — because not a single effort is made to promote them via proven tactics like adoption events, foster care, neighborhood flyers, or Craigs List postings — one by one AWLA quietly kills its unwanted dogs. While the low-effort status quo must seem comfortable to AWLA management, it’s depressingly lethal for Arlington’s neediest companion animals.