Animal Adoption Center of Blount County
Shelter Data
The Animal Census Reporting Act (Alabama Code §§ 3-10) requires animal shelters to compile a monthly report of shelter data. The information below is from the Blount County shelter’s monthly reports.
Intake
- Intake is a tally of pets taken in by the shelter. Blount County takes in animals via the following three routes:
- Owner Surrenders are pets taken in at the request of the owner. The shelter is under no obligation to accept surrenders.
- Strays are pets impounded by animal control officers or brought in by residents. The shelter is required to intake strays.
- Seized pets are removed from the owner by an officer in accordance with the custody procedure delineated in Cruelty to Dog or Cat § 13A-11-240 et seq. Seized pets cannot leave the shelter except by court order. The shelter has, thus far, categorized seized pets as strays, so it has not been possible to track the number of seized pets.
| Intake | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dogs | 1349 | 1574 | 1623 | 753 |
| Cats | 614 | 578 | 941 | 413 |
| Other | 10 | 5 | 6 | ? |
| Total | 1973 | 2197 | 2570 | 1166 |
*2025 data includes Jan. through June.
Total Intake increased 30% from 2022 to 2024. Will 2025 intake end that trend?
Intake by Owner Surrender
| Surrenders | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dogs | 317 | 351 | 545 | 285 |
| Cats | 213 | 204 | 277 | 218 |
| Other | 10 | 5 | 6 | ? |
| Total | 540 | 560 | 828 | 503 |
*2025 data includes Jan. through June.
The shelter accepted 53% more surrendered pets in 2024 than 2022. If the shelter continues to accept surrenders at 2025’s current pace, 2025 surrender intake will far exceed previous years.
Intake of Strays
| Strays | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dogs | 1032 | 1223 | 1078 | 468 |
| Cats | 401 | 374 | 658 | 195 |
| Other | 0 | 0 | 0 | ? |
| Total | 1433 | 1597 | 1736 | 663 |
*2025 data includes Jan. through June.
Stray intake increased 21% between 2022 and 2024. Will 2025 continue a decline from 2023’s peak?
Outcomes
- Outcomes represent pets who have left the shelter.
- Live Outcomes include:
- Adopted pets go home with individuals and families who come to the shelter from Blount County and sometimes other areas.
- Rescued pets are taken in by nonprofit rescue organizations and sometimes transported to other areas of the US and even internationally.
- Reclaimed pets are reunited with their owner.
- Cat TNR (trap, neuter, return) is another possible live outcome; however 2025 shelter data indicates no utilization of TNR.
- Non-Live Outcomes include:
- Killed includes euthanasia of irremediably suffering animals and killing for reasons unrelated to the animal’s health. (The shelter does not accept pets for owner-requested euthanasia.)
- Died is the number of animals who died in the shelter from other causes.
- Live Release is the percentage of pets who left the shelter alive. This rate is calculated by dividing live outcomes by total outcomes.
| All Species | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adopted | 1189 | 940 | 1080 | 394 |
| Rescued | 502 | 842 | 614 | 484 |
| Reclaimed | 98 | 105 | 92 | 27 |
| Killed | 193 | 290 | 569 | 256 |
| Died | 13 | 7 | 15 | 15 |
| Total Outcomes | 1995 | 2184 | 2370 | 1168 |
| Total Live | 1789 | 1887 | 1786 | 905 |
| Live Release | 90% | 86% | 75% | 77% |
*2025 data includes Jan. through June.
The percentage of live outcomes decreased 15% from 2022 to 2024. Thus far in 2025, adoptions and reclaims are at a four-year low, and rescue is at a four-year high.
Month-by-Month Outcomes for 2025
| Dog Outcomes | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live | 126 | 127 | 113 | 115 | 88 | 103 | 81 | 105 |
| Non-Live | 14 | 35 | 10 | 19 | 20 | 19 | 15 | 12 |
| Total | 140 | 162 | 123 | 134 | 108 | 122 | 96 | 117 |
| Live Release | 90% | 78% | 92% | 86% | 81% | 84% | 84% | 90% |
| Cat Outcomes | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live | 26 | 34 | 41 | 37 | 50 | 45 | 51 | 54 |
| Non-Live | 3 | 27 | 12 | 11 | 37 | 56 | 44 | 44 |
| Total | 29 | 61 | 53 | 48 | 87 | 101 | 95 | 98 |
| Live Release | 90% | 56% | 77% | 77% | 57% | 45% | 54% | 55% |
June’s 56 non-live cat outcomes included 9 adult cats and 47 kittens up to 5 months old, according to the data; all were listed as unnatural deaths. The 19 non-live dog outcomes included 4 deaths at the shelter (2 adults and 2 puppies) and 15 who were killed (8 adults and 7 puppies).
About the Data
You are welcome to review the raw data as provided by Karen Startley, shelter director:
Prior the shelter’s 2025 transition to electronic calculation, there were inconsistencies with the raw data. For example:
- In 2024, there was a difference of 200 pets in the intake and outcome numbers. While a small difference is expected since there are pets in the shelter from one year to the next (the difference in the two previous years was 13 and 22), 200 is well over the number of pets in the shelter at any one time, indicating a large number of missing outcomes and/or extra intakes.
- Live release rates were miscalculated on the shelter’s handwritten data sheets. The live release calculation is the number of live outcomes divided by the number of total outcomes; the shelter had instead calculated as live outcomes divided by total intake.
- Annual data did not match totals of monthly data. Monthly data was typically more accurate. For example, the 2023 annual data page showed an intake-outcome discrepency of over 400 pets, but the total of the monthly numbers came much closer to balancing.
- There were some transcription errors on the shelter’s sheets, such as the exact duplication of total intake, total adoption, dog adoption, and cat adoption numbers in March and April 2023.
- Calculation methods varied: return adoption and animal control numbers are sometimes in addition to surrender and stray numbers, and other times are already figured into surrender and stray numbers.
These issues became evident when the data is entered into a spreadsheet and calculated by formula. The result is that the shelter’s data prior to the 2025 transition mentioned above was challenging to input and analyze, and some issues continue (seized pets continue to be listed as strays rather than as seizures, for example). The 2002 through 2024 numbers in the tables above are derived from a spreadsheet in which I entered the shelter’s data to make it possible to analyze. Please ask if you would like the file.
(Data for other species, which has previously included hamsters, guinea pigs, and rabbits, is no longer listed on shelter records, as indicated by the question mark.)
Your thoughts, feedback, and ideas are always welcomed.