What is it about?
The number of dogs in a shelter's care — the census — rises whenever more dogs come in during a month than leave. We asked two questions: what drives those month-to-month swings, and how does a shelter work off a build-up once it has happened? Using three years of monthly reports from U.S. shelters (Shelter Animals Count, 2022–2024), we found that the swings track intakes more closely than outcomes. More intakes or fewer outcomes both drive the census higher, but intakes are the stronger driver. Once build-up happens, it's worked off mainly by moving dogs out — adoptions contribute the most — over several months. Reducing intakes could also drive the census back down, but we find this is a much weaker effect. It takes about 7.6 months to recover 95% of an increase for government-related shelters and 5.2 months for non-government organizations. Transfers to other organizations and, unfortunately, euthanasia also rise more than their usual share when shelters have more dogs. For government-related shelters, the live release rate on that extra volume was lower than their overall rate (85.8% vs. 90.1%); but for non-government shelters it was unchanged. More intakes lead to census increases which in turn lead to more outcomes. Fewer intakes lead to census decreases, which in turn lead to fewer outcomes. These results are symmetric, because we don't have data on the absolute census level. We're only looking at census fluctuations.
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Why is it important?
The changes we're finding are not automatic. Shelters respond to census changes, and these responses are baked into the data and are captured in our results. Our results show that these efforts pay off. Adoption capacity shouldn't be treated as a fixed ceiling. Shelters adopt out more dogs when they are fuller, which means crowding is dampened rather than permanent. But it resolves slowly, and for government-related shelters there's a cost to the live release rate. That lag matters for planning. A crowding problem that starts today is still working itself out half a year later, so shelters and their governing bodies benefit from acting on census increases early rather than waiting for the system to correct itself. Check out this graphical abstract / visual summary of the results on government-related organizations: https://app.box.com/s/vc5e4g42r70kn21pz7yr9aj0h65hwx1d
Perspectives
Shelters do respond to crowding — that is the encouraging part of this study. What struck me is how long the response takes, and what it costs. Several months of elevated census is several months of longer stays, more stress on the animals, and, in government-related shelters, a lower live release rate on the extra volume. Not a precipitous drop, but a measurable one. This connects to work I've done on length of stay and on marketing. If crowding resolves mainly through adoptions, then anything that speeds adoptions — kennel visibility, promotion of the animals that are hardest to place — is not just good for the individual dog, it speeds up the recovery for the whole shelter and benefits all its animals. Look up my other studies in my Kudos profile!
Michael Mavrovouniotis
Social Compassion / SCIL
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Shelter Dog Census Changes Track Intakes but Resolve Slowly via Outcomes and Especially Adoptions, Animals, August 2026, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/ani16152400.
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