The Denver area is a heavenly place to be a beast.
In fact, it’s among the top five to 10 places in the country for pets, according to John Snyder, vice president for companion animals at the Humane Society of the United States.
“If you have pets you have a greater chance of finding a cure or a home for them in Denver,” Snyder says.
The metro area has a stellar assortment of animal welfare organizations, he adds, and they have developed a level of collaboration that’s the envy of many cities around the country.
Local pet owners might not realize just how fortunate their animals are. But they experience it regularly in the form of lower euthanasia rates, better care standards and groundbreaking research that leads to improved lives for their animals.
Any number of people also will cite Denver’s outdoors-oriented lifestyle, its passion for activities with pets, its high education level and its relative affluence as factors in making the city a good place for pets.
Add to that the presence of Colorado State University’s top-rated veterinary school, which sends a steady flow of veterinarians and research information to the area.
Forbes magazine in 2007 even placed Denver among the top 10 cities in America for pets (Colorado Springs finished first), based on park acreage, pet-supply and -business services, and veterinary services.
But there’s even more to the story.
Beyond the large animal-welfare groups, for instance, the Denver area is dotted with smaller shelters being recognized for their work. The Humane Society of Boulder Valley, for example, has been doing innovative work on pet behavior, a major issue in adoption. A prime example is a new program that modifies cat behavior to eliminate problems that often result in their return to the shelter.
“There’s a focus here on understanding the human/animal connection unlike anywhere else in the country,” says David Gies, executive director of the Animal Assistance Foundation — one of the stars in the constellation of local animal-welfare groups.
“We have a wonderful trend of collaboration between organizations in the animal-welfare community,” adds Ralph Johnson, executive director of the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association. “Veterinary groups work well with animal-welfare and control groups. That’s not true in some states.”
Johnson says the result is more pet adoptions, better procedures for animal intake at shelters, better socialization of animals, consistent data collection and, in many cases, better ordinances for living safely with pets.
“We have one of the highest rates of live-animal releases at 72-73 percent,” Johnson says of animals that are adopted, returned to owners or transferred to another agency. “In many communities it is just the opposite.”
The nonprofit arm of the state veterinary association now operates Harrison Animal Hospital, which provides subsidized care to low-income clients.
Gies, of the Animal Assistance Foundation, sees historical roots in the way animal organizations here cooperate.”It’s part of the barn-raising attitude of the West,” he says.
That legacy has taken shape in two other organizations that meet regularly to exchange ideas and serve as a resource for each other.
One is the Metro Denver Shelter Alliance, established in 2000.
“We’ve come a long way in 20 years in Denver,” says Martha Smith, an alliance member and a long-time animal volunteer. “At the time the bigger organizations wouldn’t even talk to the smaller shelters.”
Now the shelters have a transfer program.
“If an animal is not getting adopted in one shelter, it can be transferred to another,” says Smith, who is president of the All-Breed Rescue Network.
The alliance is also a venue for shelters to share data about “best practices” with each other, such as proper animal-intake procedures. And all member organizations are required to keep track of live-animal release rates so that everyone is “speaking the same language,” in the words of another member.
A second organization, the Colorado Federation of Animal Welfare Agencies, addresses issues on a statewide level. It was formed in 1954.
“Early on, our leadership says that while we may disagree about some things, at the end of the day we can find common ground on some things,” says Lisa Pederson, head of the group. “We look at the best way to leverage resources.”
Pederson, the CEO of the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, takes pleasure in explaining what she gets out of the process as a shelter leader.
“What has been paramount as a CEO is the sharing of resources,” she says. “We can call upon partners to help us. It’s incredible for us to have access to ideas.”
In addition to the alliance and the federation, the CEOs of a half-dozen animal-welfare groups meet every other month for lunch and a discussion of common issues.
“It’s wonderful to talk about how we can support each other more,” says Morris Animal Foundation CEO Patricia Olson.
That ultimately raises the question: What caused Denver’s animal agencies and veterinarians to start working together in the first place?
“Serendipity, I guess,” says Martha Smith, who applauds the efforts of David Gies, Ralph Johnson and Dumb Friends League CEO Robert Rohde, among others. “There were a number of people in town who were determined to make this happen.”
John Davidson writes regularly about pet news and care issues.
Premier pet-welfare groups
Some of the premier animal-welfare groups that helped put the Denver area among the top American cities for pets include:
DUMB FRIENDS LEAGUE
John Snyder of the Humane Society of the United States believes this is one of the country’s best animal shelters. The league, which marks its 100th anniversary this year, had a recent growth spurt that included the remodeling of its Quebec Street shelter and the building of the Buddy Center in Douglas County. CEO Robert Rohde has overseen a reduction in euthanasia from 40,000 animals to 6,000 a year during his 37 years at the league.
MORRIS ANIMAL FOUNDATION
Established here in 1948, it is now the country’s top nonprofit organization for advancing animal welfare and health. It has funded more than 1,600 studies. It will soon launch a study of canine cancer in which it will track 1,000 dogs over their lifetimes.
ANIMAL ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION
It was founded in the ’70s with a grant from a Coors family heir. It built Harrison Memorial Animal Hospital (), the largest nonprofit pet hospital in the state. It took a lead role in animal/human violence research, partnering with the American Humane Association. That research centers on the fact that violence against animals often escalates over time into violence against people.
AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION
This 133-year-old national organization moved its headquarters to the area in 1968 because of Denver’s central location. Among other things, it has fostered groundbreaking research into the link between violence against animals and against people, which led to establishing an endowed chair at the University of Denver.
