Make Louisville Metro Animal Services on Manslick Road an adoption facility.

In April 2010, Louisville Kentucky’s current Mayor, Greg Fischer, was running for office. At the time, he was very friendly with local animal rescues and sympathetic to their cause. In retrospect, this was a cynical ploy for votes from this large and active group of people. In the end, he won his election by barely 7,000 votes, mostly due to the animal organizations that came out in large numbers to support him on election day.

At one campaign rally directed towards these animal rescue groups, he pledged:

     “If elected mayor, my goal will be to employ the measures in my plan to move Louisville Metro Animal Services toward being a shelter in which no adoptable pet is euthanized.”

Specific steps to accomplish this were outlined in his Animal Welfare and Control Plan. In this plan, he stated that increasing adoptions was “an essential element” if Louisville was going to decrease the amount of killing at Metro Animal Services. To meet this goal, he planned to:

     Promote and increase pet adoptions by: improving the customer experience at the shelter through convenient hours and a more comfortable atmosphere; maximizing the visibility of adoptable animals online, through traditional media, at community events; and, working with breed and community rescue groups to move as many animals as possible to safe homes·

     Only approximately 20% of people adding a pet to their households adopt from a shelter.  For Louisville Metro to become a community in which no adoptable pet is euthanized, increasing adoptions is an essential element. 

Despite his claims that he will increase adoptions, the opposite has occurred. Adoptions actually decreased by 4% from 2012 to 2013 at the new multi million dollar adoption facility Animal House. In 2012, 2077 animals, 22% of the animals that came into the shelter were adopted. In 2013, 1912 animals were adopted, down to only 18% of intake. This is particularly disturbing considering they have 5 full time adoption staff at that facility and do nothing but adoptions (no intake) there.

The obvious solution to this problem is to use the other shelter, Manslick Road, as an adoption facility as well. When the Animal House facility opened in Dec. 2010, Manslick Road was closed for adoptions and used as an intake and warehouse facility only. It has no full or part time Adoption Coordinators staffing the facility, although it houses the majority of the animals. The animals that come into this facility die there unless they are fortunate enough to be sent to a rescue group or Animal House for adoption. In 2013, 3033 animals died at Manslick Road without ever being seen by the public. Having two shelters operating as adoption facilities has the ability to double the current dismal rate of adoptions.

Margaret Brosko, Public Information Supervisor for Metro Animal Services, has maintained that anyone wishing to adopt an animal is welcome at the Manslick Road facility. In an interview with a Louisville.com reporter, she stated “It’s definitely possible to adopt an animal from the Manslick Road location . . . people are more than welcome to come and look at that facility. We do adoption walk-throughs for that facility every day.” However, experience tells us something else. While people who’ve lost a dog or cat can do a “walk through,” it’s a different story if you want to adopt. Your ability to see adoptable animals depends on whether a person doing another job has the time to show you an animal. More times than not, an adopter is told to go to the Animal House facility.

If you don’t want your tax dollars spent on killing animals that never had a chance to be adopted into a loving home, please sign this petition addressed to Mayor Greg Fischer in Louisville Kentucky and DEMAND that full-time, permanent, Adoption Coordinators be assigned to work at the Manslick Road facility. For far too long, LMAS has gotten away with the lie that Manslick was open for adoptions, by allowing a few people a month to see the animals. If that were the case, why are there no full time Adoption Coordinators working there? Let’s change that and give these animals some hope.

To Mayor Greg Fischer: We the undersigned respectfully ask that you give each and every animal at the Manslick Road shelter the ability to be seen and adopted by the public. Currently there is no full or part time Adoption Coordinators working there and the animals sit in their kennels waiting to be pulled for rescue or to be sent to Animal House. All others die without being seen by the public. Please instruct the Management at Metro Animal Services to immediately rectify this situation by hiring new, full time, Adoption Coordinators to work only at the Manslick facility or move some of the workers from Animal House to perform this function. Thank you.