Capacity for Care in Animal Shelters & Rescues
You don’t need to dust off your scientific calculator to understand your shelter’s capacity for humane care. While there are times when performing a few key capacity calculations for housing [PDF], staffing [PDF], and behavior [EXCEL} can be useful, shelters just need to ask themselves one question:
With the resources we have today, can we meet the physical and behavioral needs of every animal in our care?
If the answer is no, perhaps those resources can be created or obtained, or perhaps steps can be taken to move that animal to a partner that is better prepared to meet those needs. If this happens for a large number of animals or on a consistent basis, follow these steps for Conquering Crowding [PDF] and shift operations back within your shelter’s capacity.
A shelter’s capacity for humane care cannot be defined by a static number of animals or a line item in a budget. It is constantly changing and is influenced by many factors including:
- Number of humane physical housing units
- Number of animal care personnel
- Knowledge, training, and skill level of animal care personnel
- Number of animals currently in care
- Additional needs of animal currently in care (e.g., specific medical or behavioral care)
- Financial resources
- Animal length of stay
- And many more
Length of Stay
A common misconception is that housing more animals will lead to increases in the number of lives saved. Understanding the impact of length of stay on our ability to meet animals’ needs can help set the record straight.
Length of stay refers to the duration of time an animal spends in the shelter system from the day of intake to the day of outcome. Here’s an insider’s secret: Minimizing length of stay is the key to reducing crowding and increasing life-saving capacity! That’s right: getting animals out of the shelter as quickly as possible is not only best for their physical and mental well-being, but it also allows you to serve a greater number of animals over time.
Check out the Length of Stay Game to learn more about how this works.
Resources & Downloads
- Determining Housing Capacity [PDF]
- Determining Staffing Capacity [PDF]
- Determining Behavior Capacity [EXCEL]
- Conquering Crowding [PDF]
- ASV Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters (Population Management section)
- Shelter Behavior Roundtable: Embracing Behavior in Capacity for Care Planning
Last Reviewed November 2023