Thoughts on Best Friend's Rural Sheltering Data

Best Friends Animal Society just released a report comparing rural and urban shelter data. It gives us the deepest look at rural sheltering that I’ve seen. Best Friends dedicates significant resources to obtaining and analyzing sheltering data from around the county, and this data is invaluable to our efforts to develop effective lifesaving programs. I sincerely appreciate Best Friends for taking this dive into rural stats.

???????????????The most significant data challenge facing rural areas is the simple lack of data. Despite their herculean effort Best Friends has been unable to obtain data from many shelters across the nation, and rural shelters make up an outsized proportion of “no data” shelters. I also suspect that rural shelters are more likely to be missed entirely by Best Friends data collection efforts (I stumbled across one a couple of weeks ago). Best Friends also only collects data from shelters, and this data does not reflect the hundreds of unserved counties across the United States. In those areas, we have no fundamental understanding of how many animals are in need or what is happening to them. We need to invest more in figuring out what is happening in rural areas, but this Best Friends study is an excellent first step.

???????????????Another data challenge in rural areas is how jurisdictions are managed versus how data is collected. Best Friends shelter data is broken down to the county level. However, in Arkansas, very few shelters are operated by counties. Shelters tend to be operated at a municipal level. That results in counties being considered “serviced” when, in fact, only a tiny part of that county is receiving the benefit of the shelter. This skews data points that compare services to the county-level population. This is a difficult variable to account for in current data sets; I run into it all the time. Another missing data point that would be useful when determining service level would be the capacity for care of individual shelters.

???????????????I was not surprised that the Best Friends data showed a higher intake per capita in rural areas versus urban areas. Other studies have shown that rural households are more likely to have multiple pets. Lack of spay and neuter access may also play a role in this. If there are more pets per capita, we’d expect intakes to reflect that. Best Friends also shows an increase in the per capita lifesaving gap, to a point, for rural areas. Curiously, this gap starts to shrink in highly rural areas. I feel that this might be a data collection issue. As areas increase in rurality, the likelihood of them reporting data (or having data to report) probably shrinks. My guess is that shelters that report data from these rural areas are more likely to be otherwise “plugged in” and to have adopted current best practices. In reality, my guess is that the lifesaving gap trend line continues on its upward journey. However, that is just a hunch, and looking at the data sources could prove me wrong [UPDATE: I've gotten some additional detail that suggests I could be barking up the wrong tree here, but this trend line reversal needs some looking at]. This same issue may also be impacting the outcomes data.

???????????????Intake data is another place where we see contrasts in the rural and urban experiences. The data shows that rural areas tend to experience a more significant proportion of owner surrenders versus strays. We do not have the data to explain why this is the case, but the Best Friends report speculates that it may be because of more neighbor-to-neighbor return-to-owner. While that is likely to affect the numbers, I suspect that there is more to the story. My agency does significantly more owner surrenders than stray intakes. The main reason is that there is no field services agency in the county to pick up strays (outside of 20 square miles covered by three small municipal animal control agencies). We see many “dog has been hanging around my house/farm/barn for a couple of weeks and now it needs to go” cases. These are often classified as owner surrenders since the animal has been under the individual’s care. In a more urban setting, these animals would likely have been reported to and picked up as strays by animal control. So, a general lack of field services may contribute to the higher number of owner surrenders versus strays.

??????????????????????????????The outcomes data shows some expected general trends. The more rural a place is, the less likely an animal is to be adopted and the more likely it is to be transferred. However, the outcomes data, like the lifesaving gap, also reverse the trend when it approaches the extreme end of rurality. Again, my guess is that this is more about which agencies are actually reporting than an accurate view of what’s happening in the field.

???????????????Best Friends’ deep dive into their rural data is an important and valuable contribution to the rather shallow rural animal welfare data pool. It shows that there are some significant differences in what is happening in rural and urban shelters. I encourage everyone to take a look at it and consider it when developing programs and funding priorities. I hope my perspective is valuable and that this vital conversation continues. This analysis is based on my personal perspective and understanding. Thanks again to Best Friends for compiling this data and making it available.

????????Report Link: https://network.bestfriends.org/research-data/research/rural-vs-urban-areas