A Letter from LifeLine's CEO
We must work to get better, to expand the capacity of our teams, and we turn to our community to expand its capacity – to help get animals out of the shelter faster and better support the need that is pouring through the front door. We believe we are all working towards that same lifesaving goal, in spite of the challenges it brings."
A Letter from LifeLine's CEO
I want to take this opportunity to reflect on the incredible progress and successes we’ve had as an organization and community, even in the face of considerable challenges. Over the last year we have increased services and saved more lives. And we also struggled with overpopulation in all of our shelters.
In spite of the growing number of animals in need, LifeLine Animal Project remains committed and dedicated to placing and saving as many healthy and treatable animals as possible.
- Intake has astronomically increased by 43% over 2023, and an astounding 9,074 animals have entered the new Fulton shelter. 4,130 pets have been adopted, 1,687 pets have gone to rescue partners, 585 pets were transferred to LifeLine’s private shelter, and 1,224 pets were returned to their homes.
- LifeLine’s Animal Services Officers responded to over 14,000 calls for animal control and enforcement services.
- LifeLine has more than doubled the capacity of the shelter by supporting over 500 animals currently living in foster homes.
- The new shelter’s clinic allows LifeLine to offer affordable pet wellness services to the public for the first time at the Fulton County Animal Services facility.
- Over the last decade of managing Fulton County Animal Services, LifeLine has decreased euthanasia by 86% and increased adoptions by 150%.
- With the dramatic increase in intake, there is not enough kennel space for the number of dogs who need help in Fulton County. And we do not want to turn away animals at risk. Our community and our teams vehemently reject the idea of killing healthy and treatable pets as the primary answer to shelter overcrowding. Still, we are faced with intractable capacity issues and must reduce the population gradually over time as we work toward more sustainable solutions. Euthanasia decisions are heartbreakingly difficult, and their result is irreversible
- The sheer volume of animals living in the shelter creates a number of problems, including the stressful environment for the animals, difficulty with cleaning, exposure to diseases, and animals not getting enough time outside.
- Construction issues typical with any new building have greatly impacted shelter operations, temporarily limiting the new facility’s capacity by 25-30% over the last six months. Fulton County reopened the old shelter temporarily to help with overflow until all the construction issues are resolved, hopefully by the end of January 2025.
- The overcrowding problem is complex and multi-layered. The economy, financial insecurity, a lack of affordable housing, breed restrictions, limited access to affordable veterinary care and spay/neuter resources, and the fact that people are choosing to turn to breeders (both backyard and beyond) instead of shelters when looking for pets – all contribute to the rising influx of pets into the shelters and the diminished public desire to adopt them.
- The challenges of shelter overcrowding, coupled with a shortage of veterinary professionals, are felt nationwide. In 2024, most every city or county shelter in the United States is working beyond its capacity for care.
- Caring for animals is very difficult work, particularly in facilities over capacity, and our teams struggle. Mistakes are sometimes made but we are always actively striving to improve operations while still prioritizing the lives of the animals in our care.
- We have committed to sustaining the shelter at an optimum capacity through a slow and steady approach of lowering our shelter population to avoid killing dozens of animals each week for space. By publicly stating our target population goal and decreasing the goal incrementally each week, we have been able to reduce the shelter dog population by 67 dogs in just two months while still limiting the use of euthanasia for population control, despite the unprecedented increase in intake.
- For the animals in the shelter, we have reduced the average length of time they stay in the shelter by 30% over the last year. On average, dogs and cats who leave the shelter have spent only two weeks there.
- We are enhancing our staffing structure in 2025 to increase accountability and fortify training for staff at every level of the organization. This will help expand our team’s capacity to better care for the greater number of animals coming into the shelter as well as improve the experience for all visitors to the shelter.
- We’ve expanded support for our volunteer and foster programs and have restructured the programs to provide more consistency across all locations and more support for volunteers and teams at each location.
- We will continue to focus on root causes of pet homelessness:
- Acting as the largest spay/neuter provider in the state, offering free and low-cost options for pet owners;
- Providing affordable and accessible veterinary care, supporting 7,000 pets each year through our Healthy Pets events, and offering including mobile veterinary care throughout the community;
- Continuing LifeLine’s Pets for Life program to provide free pet resources in Atlanta’s most under-resourced neighborhoods, supporting over 6,000 pets each year to help keep people and their pets together.
Caring for animals in a shelter is always messy, often stressful, and sometimes heartbreaking. We ask for your support, compassion, patience, and a little bit of grace to know that we are striving to do our best with the resources available. Even as we struggle to work beyond the capacity of our shelters and, at times, of our teams, we accept the challenge to grow our capacity, expand our resources, strengthen our teams and our resolve. Some in the community suggest, even insist, that we euthanize more to reduce the shelter population quickly. We do not believe and cannot accept that we can or should kill our way to a solution. We must work to get better, to expand the capacity of our teams, and we turn to our community to expand its capacity – to help get animals out of the shelter faster and better support the need that is pouring through the front door. We believe we are all working towards that same lifesaving goal, in spite of the challenges it brings. I promise you we are up for the challenge. It’s a new year. Are you in?
Sincerely,
Rebecca Guinn
Founder & CEO
