Show Us Your Shelter

OPEN LETTER

We’re calling on authorities in every country to make basic information about publicly funded dog shelters publicly available.

Add your name to support our call for transparency and accountability.

Public Money. Public Accountability.

To governments, municipalities and public authorities responsible for publicly funded dog shelters,

When dogs are taken into a publicly funded shelter, the public should be able to find out where they are being held and what happens to them.

We are asking you to make that information readily available.

Tell us where the shelter is, who operates it and how the public can contact it. Publish its capacity and the number of dogs currently being held there.

Tell us how many dogs enter the shelter and what happens to them afterwards. How many are reclaimed? How many are adopted or transferred? How many are released or returned where that system applies? How many remain in care? How many die in the shelter? How many are euthanised?

Every dog that enters the system should have a recorded outcome.

Tell us who is responsible for inspecting the shelter, when the most recent inspection took place and what was found. Where improvements were required, tell us whether they were completed.

This is public information about a publicly funded service. It should not take repeated requests, lengthy correspondence or specialist knowledge to obtain it. It should be routinely published and easy to find.

We are asking for three simple things:

Visibility. Tell us where the dogs are.

Numbers. Tell us what happens to them.

Inspection. Tell us who checks.

Publicly funded dog shelters are responsible for animals that cannot speak for themselves. The communities funding those shelters should be able to see how that responsibility is being discharged.

Public money should come with public accountability.