Surrender Fees

[melonie]

The shelter I work at has always had a surrender fee. In the beginning it was because they were running on a very limited budget. It was $20, it was a realistic amount and I understood why it was in place.
Fast forward to 7 years and the surrender fee is still in place. It was recently agreed on to be raised to $45.

I am struggling to find the words to convey what I feel about this. The community we live in, is farm rich. But the worker bees are not paid well. A "good" paying job is considered to be $10 an hour. Most pay around $8.50.

It's not really the farm rich people who surrender their animals. It's not the teachers, police officers, doctors and lawyers. The main source outside of law enforcement impounds are laborers and low income workers.

I'm at a loss as how to address the board about this.
If I were faced w/ having to surrender my dog because I couldn't afford to take care of him anymore, but I couldn't afford the fee, that's just horrible in so many ways.

[fureverywhere]

I totally agree with you. That's the kind of situation that leads some people to just abandon Boomer out on the side of the road hoping someone finds him before he dies. I've had a similar argument over adoption fees. In some areas where the majority is low income households they need some kind of program that can place animals in appropriate homes and would include follow up and affordable vet clinics.

[kcdogblog]

I think the issue of owner surrender fees is an interesting discussion. We have it a lot at our shelter. Melonie, I don't know the make-up of the shelter you work for, but ours is at least in-part taxpayer subsidized. Obviously, when an animal comes into the shelter it is likely to cost quite a bit more than $20, or $45 to care for and find a home for. The flip-side of the question is, how much should taxpayers (or donors for that matter) be required to subsidize someone needing to re-home their pet?

I'm not saying I have the right answer. I know in our case we are pushing to increase fees to let taxpayers off the hook for subsidizing pet re-homing to a degree and then allowing our team the opportunity to decrease fees if they feel it does put people at a huge financial hardship.

[melonie]

Our shelter is run on donations. Boarding fees and impound fees.
The town has 3500 ppl, no AC, so the local pd handles strays and such. We have an agreement with the city to house the impounds.
What usually happens is that the dogs get dumped in town.
What also happens is that someone who finds a dog cant bring him in. They have to call police. But if you live outside the city line the police won't respond. You have to call the sheriff. They are not authorized to impound or transport strays. So whoever finds that dog is faced with paying the surrender fee or haggling to get around it or they do nothing.

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