Our shelter puts out the actual numbers for total intake categorized by type (owner surrender, stray, etc), species of animal (dog, cat, other), number adopted out, amount of each pulled by rescue and total euthanized. The reports can be viewed online and everything we do is public record and can be pulled. The adoption numbers we have are far from perfect, but have improved some in the last year due to lowering adoption costs (dogs are 50 bucks and include spay/neuter, county license, all vaccinations, and a microchip- cats were 20 at one point and kittens were buy one get one free and included the same things as dog adoptions) and more events. We have a lot of intake and a pretty high euth rate still, but we do tell people when they call or come in to drop off animals that we are not a "no kill" and although we will try to get their animal adopted, we can not guarentee it. We especially tell cat people that our intake is high and our adoption/rescue rate is low. Dogs seem to get pulled more often (especially small) but we also tell people who turn in Pit Bulls or mixes that their chances are slim as that is what we mostly have and is the most difficult to rehome. We also start taking in animals as a euth request when we start to fill up. Since we have to hold a stray for 7 days, surrenders and dogs off stray time will be put down first when we run out of room. We found making someone sign their animal over that way makes them think about their decision a little more and makes them responsible for making the decision to put them down. Often, unless we are too full or the dog has medical/behavioral problems, we will still try to adopt it, but the owner is making the decision and is fully aware that we will likely put their animal down. We have had many people leave and say they will try to rehome it because "you are not going to kill my dog/cat". It ends up making us the bad guys in their eyes, like we enjoy putting animals down, but I'd rather them think that way and us not have to do it than the other way around. Often, people are unaware or don't think it will happen so we are the lazy way of getting rid of the animal and are their first choice of places to go to or visit. We tell them try craigslist, petfinder to get numbers of local rescues, other shelters locally that are "no kill", etc. We do what we can to keep our intake lower, but unfortunately, it is not a shelter problem, it is a public awareness and responsibility problem. I tell people if people would spay/neuter and take responsibility for their animals, we wouldn't have a job. I also talked to one of our volunteers who works with an animal shelter bashing non-profit that instead of bashing us for "killing poor innocent animals", start public awareness campaigns. Maybe find local trainers that specialize in specific problems, and put training solutions on a website for easy to correct behaviors (house breaking, etc) and maybe put a list together of pet friendly transportation options, local apartment pet deposit amounts and breed restrictions, things of that nature. In my opinion that is time well spent and bashing us is a waste. I can not see where that would help our adoption rate- seeing us as the bad guys on craigslist all the time. I would not go eat at a resteraunt that was always getting bad reviews. That is just my thoughts on this. I do not know about the money per animal euthanized, I had never heard of that before, but it could also mean that you save money on care and feeding if they are put to sleep instead of housed and cared for??? I don't know. I know our county tries not to take in out of county animals (our shelter is close to the border of another county and we are closer to the people who live on the other side of the border then their shelter), because we would have to pay to care for the animal, their shelter has a better adoption rate and more funding, and if it is a stray, people won't come to our shelter to look for it. Ok, think I am out of thoughts now.