Salina Animal Services is in an interesting place right now.
It strives to maintain a no-kill status, while also often being full to the extent that it can’t accept additional animals.
While in this unique place, the animal shelter does still have cats and dogs available to adopt and is trying to raise the standard of care.
During a study session with the Salina City Commission, Jeff Hammond, director of Salina Parks and Recreation, talked about where the shelter is at and the difficulties it has seen in the past year.
In June 2024, the Friends of the Animal Shelter dissolved as an organization, leaving many of the tasks that were previously performed by volunteers now placed on staff at the shelter.
Because of this, Parks and Recreation is looking to revamp and lead a city-organized volunteer plan, with Andrea Born, operations manager for the shelter, leading that charge.
No-kill status in question for Salina Animal Shelter as it remains full
Right now, the Best Friends Animal Society describes a “no-kill” shelter as one in which the live outcomes of animals is at 90% or higher, based on how many total live intakes the facility has.
In 2024, Salina was at 87% live outcomes. Hammond said this was due to a number of factors, particularly an outbreak in the community of feline panleukopenia virus.
“That was a disease where we often found cats were suffering as they came in,” he said.
To ease the suffering, many cats were humanely euthanized, while others died of the disease while in the care of the shelter, bringing that live outcome number below the 90% threshold.
Because of being at or beyond capacity for its dogs, the shelter also updated its criteria for euthanasia, which now includes a length of stay of six months or greater as a consideration for the procedure.
While not always the primary reason for euthanasia, Hammond said of the dogs euthanized in 2024, more than half had a length of stay of 180 days or greater.
Finally, there is the issue of Salina’s ban on pitbulls in the community. Because of the ban and language in the city’s code, the shelter can’t adopt out dogs of this breed, meaning they stay in the shelter until they can be transferred somewhere else.
As of Feb. 20, there were 24 pitbulls at the shelter, awaiting transfer to another shelter or organization. This accounts for more than 35% of 68 dogs currently in the facility.
This ban has been a topic of conversation for the community and the city commission since it was put in place 20 years ago, with one community organization now working to have the ban lifted.
How is the Salina Animal Shelter working to improve outcomes?
Moving forward, Hammond said the shelter is striving to do better for the community and for the animals here.
“We’re a community animal shelter,” he said. “We want to find opportunities for increasing live outcomes, especially for cats.”
While wanting to increase that outcome, Hammond said the shelter also wants to be able to increase the overall capacity of care for pets in the community, particularly when it comes to how full the shelter has been.
“I find it unacceptable that we can’t take strays and surrenders at times,” he said.
Some of the ways to help increase this care is through things the community can help with including adopting pets from the shelter.
Born said there are currently 14 dogs and 11 cats at the shelter that are adoptable, some of which can be seen on the shelter’s adoption page.
All adoptable pets are spayed or neutered, microchipped, dewormed and vaccinated in some way before being put up for adoption.
Right now, people can come by to see these animals with walk-ins available from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturdays.
People can also come Thursdays, which is surgery day at the shelter, but need to schedule an appointment ahead of time.
As the weather gets warmer, Born said there will also be some adoption events outside the shelter.
Additionally, while there is currently not a program available for people to volunteer at the shelter, Born is working on getting a program established, which is hoped to get underway later this year.
More details about adoptions, future volunteering opportunities or other services such as spay and neuter or microchipping, visit the Salina Animal Services website at www.salina-ks.gov/animal-services or call 785-826-6535.
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