Euthanization at the Austin Animal Center — Are They a No-Kill Shelter?

In the US, there are animal shelters that are known to euthanize animals after a period of time if they do not find a home. However, there are many animal shelters that are adopting a no kill policy. According to PAWS Chicago and Best Friends Animal Society, the no kill policy means that the shelter saves all healthy and treatable animals that enter the facility. This means that if an animal’s behavior is treatable, they will rehabilitate the animal in order for someone to adopt it. Or if the animal needs medical attention and they can treat the condition, they will. This policy in turn reduces the amount of animals euthanized at the facility.

The Austin Animal Center in Austin, Texas is one of these no kill animal shelters. This is a bold statement since Texas is the second highest kill state in the US, according to the Best Friends Animal Society. The map below shows that both California and Texas kill more than 95,000 animals per year since 2017.

Best Friends Animal Center Map Ranking on No Kill States

The Austin Animal Center claims that since February of 2011, over 90% of the animals who entered the facility have a live outcome (the animal is alive when exiting the facility). In this article, we will be discussing the following about the Austin Animal Center based on their data:

• all animal outcomes
• why certain animals are euthanized
• the timeline for euthanization in certain animals
• the statement that 90% of animals are not euthanized

The Data

The two data sets I gathered on the Austin Animal Center (AAC) is sourced from https://data.austintexas.gov/. Both datasets start Oct. 1, 2013 and ends January, 18, 2021. One dataset is the intake for all animals that enter the facility, and the other dataset is the outcome for the animals leaving the facility.

Terms and their Meanings

The datasets do not give a description as what is meant by some of their terms, nor does the site the data was retrieved from. Therefore, we have to infer what they mean based on prior knowledge. Below are the particular terms that will be used and their inferred meanings.

Outcome Types:

• Adoption: The animal was adopted to a forever home
• Transfer: The animal was transferred to another facility; possibly a foster/adoption facility, a partner group or another animal shelter
• RTO: The animal was returned to its owner; possibly after being lost
• Euthanize: The animal was euthanized (put to “sleep” — medically induced death)
• RTO Adoption: The animal was returned to its owner through adoption services
• Died: The animal died at the facility
• Disposal: The animal was disposed of; possibly from dying
• Missing: The animal went missing from the facility; possibly theft

Euthanization Subtypes:

• Suffering: The animal was physically suffering and/or in pain
• Aggressive: The animal was aggressive to humans and/or other animals, and could not be rehabilitated
• Behavior: The animal’s behavior was not normal, and/or their behavior could not be rehabilitated
• Rabies Risk: The animal may or does have rabies
• Medical: The animal would medically be in pain; the facility could not help the needs of the animal medically (possibly the condition was too far along)
• At Vet: The animal was euthanized at the vet
• Court/Investigation: The animal was euthanized based on a court proceeding
• Underage: The animal was premature and may not have survived
• No Subtype: The animal was euthanized; no further reason was given

Creating and Cleaning One Dataframe

The dataframe used was created by combining the Austin Animal Center Intakes dataset with the Austin Animal Center Outcomes dataset. A dataframe is typically a vast table of information based on the data gathered. The main reason for combining the two datasets was that I could create a timeline to see when the animals at the center were being euthanized from their intake date. Another reason was that all the information on the intakes and outcomes would be readily available in just one dataframe instead of two. But first, the combined dataframe had to be created and cleaned!

To view the process and code of creating the dataframe, the visuals, and the statistics please follow the link to my github project page.

The process was as follows:

1. The datasets had to be merged together.
2. I took away all the columns I knew I would not be needing.
3. I decided if the missing values were of importance or if keeping them would add meaning to the data.
4. Then, I created other dataframes from the initial dataframe to use for specific purposes, and so I would always have a backup just in case.

Animal Types at the Austin Animal Center

At the AAC, there are a lot of animals that come and go. On top of being an animal shelter where they take in injured/stray animals and where owners can surrender their pets, they also have a few more programs. The animal center has a program for “lost and injured” pets, for “dangerous and vicious dogs”, they have various resources and programs for wildlife found in the city, and they have several types of resources and services offered for the community.

With all of these programs and the city of Austin ever expanding, it’s no wonder that they have more than just cats and dogs that enter their facility! As the graph below shows, they not only have a large percent of cats and dogs, but livestock, birds, and “other” animals as well. With further inspection into the dataframe, the “other” distinction is mainly for wildlife that have been brought to the facility such as, but not limited to bats, foxes, skunks, hamsters, and rabbits.

All Possible Outcomes for All Animals

The AAC is dedicated to make sure that animals are treated well and go home to their forever families. In the graph below, the majority of animals that leave the AAC either get adopted, get transferred, or go back to their owner. Over 71,000 animals have gotten adopted in the eight years that this dataset was recorded. A little more than half of the adoptions, nearly 40,000 have been transferred and nearly 36,000 have gone back to their owners. Euthanization is between an eighth or ninth of the outcomes with only about 8,600 animals being euthanized.

The first graph is hard to tell what number the other outcomes are. With a closer look (below), we can see that about 1,300 animals are returned to their owner through an adoption process. About 1,200 animals died at the facility and a little more than 550 were disposed. There are even fewer number of animals that went missing.

Overall, these bar graphs are very promising that the AAC does in fact have about 90% of animals that go to homes or go to adoption groups.

Austin Animal Center Euthanizations

Even when a shelter is a no kill shelter, they will still need to euthanize animals that are harmful because of their behavior, the possibility of having rabies, their medical condition being too painful for the animal, or because of other possible reasons. In this section, we will look at the types of animals being euthanized, why the animals were euthanized, and the timeline for euthanization.

Euthanizations

From the graph to the left, we can see that there are a considerable amount more euthanizations from “other” animals, which we now know to be mainly wildlife animals. After wildlife euthanizations, the number of dogs euthanized is slightly higher than the number of cats euthanized; more than 2,000 dogs and nearly 1,900 cats have been euthanized. A considerably lower amount of birds and livestock have also been euthanized at the facility.

Euthanization Subtypes

There is more to the story than just euthanizing animals. There is always a reason why an animal shelter does this. At the ACC, there are multiple reasons why they would put an animal “to sleep”. In the pie graph to the left, we can see that 42.5% of animals are euthanized because they pose a rabies risk. Meaning that the animal either does or is very likely to have rabies (a deadly virus to humans that can be spread through an animal’s bite).

Another 38.2% of animals are put down because they are suffering in some way. 19.3% of animals make up for the rest of the pie chart. Of that percent, 7.9% are severely aggressive, 3.6% have severe medical conditions that cannot be treated, 2.1% have behavior problems that cannot be rehabilitated, 2.6% do not have a subtype assigned to why they were euthanized, 2.1% was at the vet, and the remaining 1% were because of either a court result or of the animal being underage. Overall, the majority of euthanizations were from either the animal suffering or posing as a rabies risk to the community.

Since the majority of animals that euthanized are wildlife, the question remains: Do cat and dog euthanizations hold the same pattern as all the animals at the center?

When looking at the pie charts for dogs and cats (see below), we can see that the pattern for either is not the same as for all the animals that were euthanized at the center. We can see that 42.8% of dogs were euthanized for aggressive behavior and 32.9% were euthanized because they were suffering. The remaining 24.3% were for severe behavior (8.8%), risk of rabies (5.5%), severe medical conditions (3.8%), at the vet (3.1%), a court result (2.5%), or they had no further explanation (0.6%).

Cats on the other hand had far different euthanization subtype groupings, with the majority of cats being euthanized due to the animal physically suffering (85.6%). The remaining 14.4% of euthanizations were for rabies risk (4.4%), at the vet (5.2%), medical (3.7%), aggressive behavior (0.2%), the cat was underage (0.1%), or they had no further explanation (0.8%).

Euthanization Timelines

When euthanizations are talked about, a question that may pop up is “When do they decide to euthanize? Is there a specific time when they euthanize animals after they enter the facility?”.

In the box plot left, we can see that all the animals who were euthanized have a varied amount of days before being euthanized, between 0 and 2,100 days (give or take). When we zoom in to the box part of the plot (below), we can see that the majority of animals euthanized are in the facility between 0–5 days. 50% of the data — the minimum, first quartile, and median (the red line) — all fall on day 0, meaning that about half of the euthanizations are from that initial day of entering the facility. Another 25% of animals were euthanized between day 0 and 2.4 days. The remaining 25% of animals were euthanized between 2.4 days and 5 days of entering the facility. All other points on the box plot are outliers, meaning that they fall outside of the main dataset, they are not where we expect them to be. Looking at the first box plot (above/left), we can see that there are a lot of outliers. This means that even though euthanizations happen between day 0 and day 5 of entering the AAC, animals can still be euthanized much later. Perhaps their condition has progressed and there is no hope for the animal to survive long enough to find a forever home.

Looking at all of the “other” animals timeline of euthanization (above), we can see that at least the outliers have fewer days to euthanization than all of the animals combined. When we zoom in and look at the box and whiskers (below), we can see that the majority of “other” animals have even fewer days to euthanization once they enter the facility. They have between 0–2 days before being euthanized. This is presumably because most “other” animals are coming in due to a rabies risk.

The timeline for cats and dogs who are euthanized at AAC is a little similar to that of the “other” animals; the fact that most animals who are euthanized are euthanized within the first couple of days.

Cats that enter the facility and are euthanized have between 0 and 10 days before being put “to sleep” (see below). The reason may be that the facility mainly puts cats “to sleep” because they are suffering. It may be hard to tell if an animal is suffering within the first few days, but after about a week of observation you can usually tell. Half of the main data gathered shows that 50% of cats who are euthanized are euthanized on the first day of entering the facility. 25% of cats are euthanized between day 0 and day 4. The final 25% of cats are euthanized between day 4 and day 10.

Dogs that enter the facility and are euthanized have between 0 and 57 days (see graph to the left). The main difference between both “other” animals, cats, and dogs is that one of the main reasons (subtypes) for a dog to be euthanized is based upon aggression and/or behavior. Both of these things take time to assess and to see if the aggression/behavior can be rehabilitated. Of those dogs who are euthanized, 50% are euthanized between day 0 and day 5. Another 25% are euthanized between day 5 and day 24. The final 25% are euthanized between day 24 and day 57.

Are 90% of Animals Not Euthanized?

On the Austin Animal Center’s website, one part of their mission statement is to “…to provide live outcomes for at least 90% of sheltered animals.” When looking at the raw numbers and converting them into percentages (the table below), we can see that basic adoption (adoption from the center and returned to owner through adoption) makes up for 45.9% of all outcomes. Animals that were adopted and returned to their owner make up for 68.38% of all outcomes! This is a big portion of animals leaving the facility alive, and by looking at the bar graph from earlier with animal outcomes (to the left), we can confirm that the percentages make sense.

There is still a chunk of animals who are leaving the facility in a different way other than through adoption or returning to their owner. Transfers make up 25.02% of outcomes. The animals that generally died from euthanasia, who died at the facility, and those that were disposed, make up 6.54%. Of which euthanasia makes up 5.44%. The percent of animals who were missing makes up 0.06%.

To answer the question “Are 90% of animals at the Austin Animal Center not euthanized”, the answer would be “yes”, since 100 minus 5.44 is 94.56%. If we are looking at all the animals that died at the facility, there is a 93.46% of live animal outcomes. Though to be considered a “no kill” shelter, the Best Friends Animal Society came up with equations for the percentage of saved animal rates, the no-kill gap, and kill rates for shelters.

The Number of Animals “Killed”

Based on the Best Friends Animal Society, the total amount killed calculation is:

“ [(Died in Care) + (Lost in Care) + (Shelter Deaths)] — 10% of total intake”.

This number can either be a positive or negative number. This calculation is the same for the no-kill gap, which on their website they state, “If the resulting number is 0 or less, then there is no longer a statistical no-kill gap because the shelter is either at or above the 90% threshold.” If we look at the table below, we can see that the amount killed and the no-kill gap at the Austin Animal Center is -1824.5 which means there is no statistical no-kill gap at the center and the AAC is either at or above the 90% no-kill threshold.

The save rate calculation by the Best Friends Animal Society is:

[(Live Intakes) — (Lost in Care) — (Shelter Deaths)] divided by (Live Intakes).

By calculating the save rate for the ACC, we can confirm that the AAC is above the 90% no-kill threshold; their save rate is 91.48%.

Overall Impression of the Austin Animal Center

In general, the AAC is doing a great job at saving and rehabilitating animals from the greater Austin area. Through their data, we can see that their claim for providing 90% of sheltered animals live outcomes is true. We still do not know what happen to the transferred animals based on the datasets and if they found their forever homes, one can only hope. We can say that the majority of animals who enter the AAC, do find their forever homes.