LAAS Stats-Rapid Improvement Faltering

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The 2006 LAAS statistics are in. I did a brief analysis.

The most significant positive change was increased adoptions, overall 6.6%. This rate of increase is 4 times the average increase for the previous five years. Something is working there.

But New Hope adoptions are down 10%, which wipes away much of the gain from in-house adoptions. Incredibly, one year before under Stuckey, New Hope adoptions were up 30%! Over the previous five years, New Hope adoption increased from 4,400 to 6,600, or about 50%. There were some years with radical deviations from that average, which no one can explain. However, as I have repeatedly stated, we should know why New Hope adoptions decreased during the past year and in 2004, and radically increased during other years, such as 2005.

It seems intuitive that there must be some saturation points for adoptions. That is, 3.2 million people and the few hundred New Hope people can only absorb an X percentage of impounds a year unless radically new ways of marketing animals are found that have not been tried by LAAS or Winograd. I don't remember if any of Nathan's stats broke out outcomes by adoptions, Non-profit placements, illness, DOA, returned to owner, etc.

The worst performance is euthanasia. Dog and cat euthanasia rates were down only 6.5%, versus 11.0% under Stuckey, and 17%, 10% and 17.6% under Greenwalt. The average euth decrease was 13.9% from 2001 through 2005, but less than half that in 2006. Why?

LAAS could argue that most of that increase in euthanasia was due to the large neonate euths during kitten season. However, the 2006 impound of unweaned kittens was actually down 7% compared to 2005, so that explanation does not wash.

Historically, the largest decrease in unweaned kitten killing was15% under Greenwalt, while the largest increased rate of killing, 22%, was also under Greenwalt.

2003 was statistically a very significant year, with a radical increase in impounds, euths and New Hope adoptions which skewed the results for 2002 and 2004. Why? No one knows. No analysis was done, and we will not be prepared for the next 2003.

Of course if I floated an investigative project proposal to the Mayor’s Office, they’d probably give it to a Friend of the Mayor, maybe a Commissioner, or even Dan Guss, since appaently the Mayor is blind to distinctions between animal people.

Of note, although feral cat euth rates (I assume that maybe 90% of trapped cats brought in are feral) have increased 51% this year, we are only talking about 250 new cats killed. Ferals, based on this figure, do not appear to be a major concern for LAAS unless the vast percentage of neonates brought in are from feral mothers. This is a significant number and more detailed statistics might reveal some answers.

Dog and cat impounds decreased only 2%, while euthanasia rates decreased 6.5%, which means there has been a healthy increase in internal efficiency for saving lives. During two of the previous five years, impound rates decreased 11%, which would account for some of the decrease in euthanasia during those years.

All in all this has not been a great year of improvement in numbers for LAAS . Improvement rates are flatlining. Much greater save rate improvements were obtained under Stuckey and Greenwalt and the Interim GM in 2004 than under Boks. In fact, unless euth rates dramatically improve above the 6.5% level, we will still be killing 13,000 animals in 2011 even given the decreasing impound rate.

The argument can be made--and powerfully--that Greenwalt picked the low hanging fruit regarding decreasing euthanasia. But what was the fruit he picked and how did he pick it? Why would Greenwalt be picking the easy solutions for three years and Stuckey for one, and then suddenly the dramatic improvements stop?

There may be what is called a Saturation S-curve for adoption, impound and euthanasia rates, where the straight part of the S of improvement is past and we are heading to the saturation limits imposed by marketing and the limits of current technology. If this is the case, next year's relative improvement numbers will be worse, and it will be due to the limitations of the technology LAAS uses, including marketing, not due to Boks' failure. But, this will be occuring on his watch and he'll catch the heat.

I understand there is quite a bit of overcrowding now to keep the animals alive longer, but this can bode poorly for next May's stats.

Everyone says conditions have improved. The future looks promising as new facilities and vets are added. There will be less crowding and hopefully a better environment to increase adoptions. Personally, I think there would be more bang for the buck if several storefront adoption centers were opened instead with a lot less overhead.

All the variances in the six years of statistics mean that we really do not begin to know the underlying impound and outcome dynamics. We can see trends but not know the reason why.

Ferals may not be the problem we think they are. We can’t tell until we know how many of the neonates are from feral moms, and, if the were, should they not have been listed as trapped cats? That is, are most neonates from housed moms? If so, vouchers and free spay/neuter are more important that TNR.

There were 7,200 unweaned kittens impounded in 2006. If half, 3,200, were ferals, then if all ferals were eliminated instantly, including the 900 trapped cats, euthanasia rates would have dropped 19%, or 4% per year if they disappeared over five years. But a more reasonable drop of 50% feral impounds over five years would mean only an additional 2% decrease in euth rates each year. A better handling of the feral problem may not cause a significant drop in impounds or euth rates. We don't know. It is all speculation without more data.

Why was 2003 such an odd year? What happened?

We need to know and understand the whys and hows of the underlying animal dynamics much better than we do now. I can’t repeat that enough. Otherwise, as Arnold Toynbee stated, we are doomed to repeat the past.