Why Anchorage's longest-held shelter animals are the ones most at risk

At the Anchorage animal shelter, the pets most at risk aren't always the sickest or the oldest — they're often the ones who've been there the longest. A dog that lands in a kennel and stays for weeks can deteriorate there, developing the kind of stress-driven behavior that scares off the very adopters who might otherwise have taken it home. A small grant headed to the Anchorage Assembly is aimed squarely at that group.

Best Friends Animal Society — a national nonprofit working to end shelter euthanasia, and a partner of the Anchorage shelter — has given Anchorage Animal Care and Control a one-time $3,000 grant to pay for professional training for animals held more than 20 days whose behavior makes them hard to adopt. The money protects animals "that would be considered at-risk in shelters," senior staff accountant Raven Darmody said. The Assembly is set to vote July 7, with the administration recommending approval; Health Department Director Kimberly Rash signed off before it reached the Assembly.

Three thousand dollars is not much. The problem it touches is not small. Anchorage Animal Care and Control is the city's open-admission shelter — it can't turn an animal away — and it repeatedly runs past capacity. Built to hold 60 to 65 dogs, it has at times housed as many as 123, often after large seizure or neglect cases bring dozens of animals in at once. When the shelter is that full, its own staff have been blunt about what's at stake: euthanasia, they've said, becomes the last resort when adoptions, foster homes, and transfers to other shelters can't keep up.

That is the pinch the long-stay, hard-to-place animals fall into first. Training won't fix the crowding — that takes adopters, fosters, and space. But for a dog running out of time because a stressful few weeks in a kennel made it harder to adopt out, a little professional help can be the difference. The grant is small and short-lived; it expires September 30.