A project dedicated to understanding the root causes behind why people need support, why pets enter the shelter, and how the industry can utilize resources to help more people and their pets.

(AUSTIN, TX) January 23, 2025–Human Animal Support Services (HASS), an international project bridging the gap between human and animal welfare, is proudly sharing the preliminary results from its Intake Triage Project (ITP) initiative. Facilitated in collaboration with three HASS pilot shelters, ITP aimed to help animal welfare organizations understand the root causes behind why individuals seek assistance and why pets are entering the shelter by implementing a people-oriented model and conversational interviewing approach. 

“Similar to a hospital care structure, we wanted to dig deeper into the “why” behind those entering the shelter doors and triage them to the best resources available accordingly,” said Amanda Foster, Director of HASS Programs. “Arming animal welfare staff with a more in depth understanding of what drives pets to the shelters allows for teams to sooner solve both the pet and people’s problems, avoid unnecessary intake where possible and relieves pressure on already overburdened shelters.” 

As a result of this project, HASS saw in real time the complexity of human circumstances leading to surrender and the importance of listening to what owners are telling us as they enter the shelter and how vital proactive, social-service-oriented program availability is before they ever have to. In fact, 90% of shelter guests at one participating shelter mentioned no assistance would be of use at the point of intake. This finding only reiterates the need for providing proactive solutions to keeping their pet before entering the shelter. 

One method to do so is through a conversational approach when interacting with shelter guests. Conversational interviewing is a style of communication that your organization can utilize when interacting with the public to create a more naturally flowing, authentic conversation, as opposed to the traditional question-and-answer transactional format. Conversational interviewing is a successful customer service-oriented technique, allowing both the organization and the individual to ask questions, build rapport, and exchange information and feedback. 

An industry first, this project also found that collecting multiple contributing factors to owner surrenders and returns through using a standard list of intake reasons and selecting more than one intake subtype and reason, armed shelter staff with the information needed to better understand the underlying human circumstance leading to the intake. This allows for a better client-experience as well as the ability to review aggregate data to inform program development strategy. For example, a top combination identified was when “New Baby” was selected, it was most often paired with “unable to fulfill pet’s mental/emotional needs” or “pet-to-pet safety concerns.” 

Proactive programming was another identified measure to not only support the people and pets of these communities, but the shelters themselves. When evaluating the responses  from lost pet finders, only 1% of found pets brought to one shelter had an identification tag. As this is the easiest way for finders to reunite lost pets they find in their community, emphasis should be placed on communicating the importance of and where possible providing physical identification tags for beloved pets. Mindfully communicating what the industry often considers “basics” and arming the public with the preventative resources available to them will help keep pets home, something the community truly wants.

Additionally, 27% of finders in one community were willing to foster the pet they found rather than have them enter the shelter. For this organization, that meant 302 fewer pets in kennels over a 5-month period of time and keeping lost pets in the community closer to where they were found. This highlights not only the community’s willingness to participate in lost pet reunification and engage as a part of the solution to getting pets home, but also an opportunity to reduce the strain on already overburdened shelters.

Utilizing these findings, HASS has developed an Intake Triage booklet for shelters to begin implementing these easy-to-execute best practices, with FREE staff training included. This guide outlines how to collect accurate owner surrender as well as lost/found pet intake reasons, how to hold human-centric and solution-oriented conversations, and how to apply findings to provide the best quality of support to your community. 

Additional findings from the HASS Intake Triage Project will be presented at the upcoming Animal Care Expo, Carolina’s UNITE conference and during a HASS Webinar this Spring. For more information on these initiatives visit humananimalsupportservices.org. 

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About Human Animal Support Services (HASS): 

The Human Animal Support Services (HASS) project is a movement seeking to revolutionize the animal welfare industry by leading with and embracing a community support model. By providing both private and municipal animal shelters with equitable access to data-driven resources, education, and implementation tools, HASS aims to create pathways toward unified support systems for pets and their people in every community. HASS encompasses a network of more than 1,500 animal and human welfare professionals. A project facilitated by Austin Pets Alive! (APA!), HASS’s 41 pilot shelters and 300+ partner organizations have joined the movement by committing to implement the HASS model. To learn more, visit www.humananimalsupportservices.org.

Source: Human Animal Support Services