January 2020 meeting of the Baltimore County Animal Services Advisory Commission

Hi, everyone...Here's a recap of our most recent meeting on january 21, 2020.

          JANUARY 2020 AGENDA
1) Call to Action
2) Roll Call-In attendance were Deborah Stone Hess, Bob Swensen, Roy Plummer, Janice Vincent, Louis Eguzo, Julie Salter, and  Larry Townsend (by phone)
3) Approval of November, 2019 minutes
4) Old Business
a) TNR law-Deborah will be meeting with TNR advocates to begin working on drafting a TNR law for Baltimore County. Kevin Usilton has been supportive and we will meet with him once we get some of the preliminary work done.
5) New Business
a) 4th quarter 2019 statistics
I cannot attach the stats provided by the Health Dept. because the format won't work on this page but here is a summary of the stats and a comparison with 4th quarter stats from 2018:

                                     4^TH Qtr. 2019 STATS

	Dogs	Cats
Intake	536	956
Adopted	135       25.1%	451       47.1%
Redeemed by owner	189        35.2%	32         3.3%
Pulled by Rescue	130        24.2%	255        26.6%
TNR		149
Owner reqst’d euth.	43	25
All other euthanasia	31         5.7%	102      10.6%
Live Release	Over 94%	Over 89%

                                      4^TH Qtr. 2018 STATS

	Dogs	Cats
Intake	522	1037
Adopted	139         26.6%	348         33.5%
Redeemed by owner	165         31.6%	25           2.4%
Pulled by rescue	125         23.9%	190        18.3%
TNR		300
Owner reqst’d euth.	63	62
All other euthanasia	28         5.3%	107         10.3%
Live Release	Over 94%	Over 89%

These numbers are very encouraging. BCAS continues to have live release of over 90% for dogs and close to 90% for cats.

b) Meeting with county to discuss Commission’s 2019 annual report-Deborah has reached out to Dr. Donatelli to request a meeting to discuss the Commissions's 2019 annual report. We are working on setting up a meeting in February.

c) Volunteer and Events Coordinator-Heidi Cruikshank has resigned as Volunteer and Events Coordinator at BCAS. She has brought the volunteer program a long way during her tenure. We'll miss her!
No word yet on her replacement.

d) Volunteer-New volunteer opportunities-BCAS has created new and exciting opportunities for volunteers:
a) Day Foster which allows volunteers to take dogs on outings away from BCAS
b) Surgical Assistant-After surgery is completed for the day, the room and instruments must be cleaned, and the equipment placed ready for the next day.  The volunteers are asked to help clean and prepare the surgical equipment.
Reading Program- Volunteers currently involved with planning and implementing a shelter reading program geared towards school aged kids.

e)  Volunteer video-Deborah is working on reading a volunteer video for BCAS.  It will be completed soon.

6) Any Other Business? No

7) Visitor Remarks or Speakers-Ann George attended the meeting and asked several questions. Are volunteers being relied on for cleaning kennels or are volunteers able to do things like dog walking, etc. Deborah said she had been at BCAS several times recently and saw many volunteers walking dogs...doesn't seem to be an issue.
Ann also asked about the stats provided by BCAS and whether BCAS provided raw data. Deborah Said no...she only gets the statistics without raw data.

8)Announcement of next meeting date and tim-Our next Commission meeting will be held on February 18,2020 at 6:30 on the 3rd floor of the Drumcastle Building.
9) Adjournment