Yesterday, I travelled to Nanaimo BC to attend a seminar by Bill Bruce, manager of Bylaw Services for Calgary Alberta. Putting it bluntly, Calgary has the best run Animal Services department in North America.
Here’s a quick overview:
- The lowest euthanasia rate in North America (6%). Apparently, this is even lower this year.
- The best “return to owner” rate (85%)
- An extremely low bite per capita (11 bites per 100,000 people compared to the U.S. average of 68 bites per 100,000 people)
- 639 reported bites in 1984, 145 in 2008 (a 77% reduction)
- 1,988 aggressive dog incidents in 1985 (including chases, threats, bites, and damage to property), 340 in 2008 (an 83% reduction)
- A 92% compliance rate for licensing (i.e., of all the dogs estimated to be in the city, approximately 92% of them have been licensed) compared to a North American average of 10%.
- A 91% public satisfaction rating for the ENTIRE bylaw department.
- An Animal Services department that does not use ANY municipal government dollars to operate. Everything is paid for by license fees and non-compliance fines.
- A phenomenal bite prevention education program, including actual certified school curriculum for pre-school to grade 7.
- Animal Services officers who have peace officer powers and who attend warrant servings with police in order to secure any animals. Not a single dog has been shot in the last ten years. Animal Services officers use catch-poles in only 3% of their calls.
- The above has been accomplished WITHOUT breed-specific restrictions or bans while the city’s population has almost doubled from 620,000 to 1.04 million.
In the next day or so, I’ll try to cover more about Bill’s business and customer service philosophies, which is crucial to the success of this program.
In the meantime, I have placed a copy of his PowerPoint presentation onto a website for downloading. Follow the instructions below to find out which option works best for you.
The basic slideshow is approximately 8 MB big. It’s here:
http://www.dogownersrights.com/calgary/presentation.pps
If you need the most recent Microsoft PowerPoint viewer for Windows, it’s big (25 MB). You need to download and run it on your computer and it will install the PowerPoint viewer. Then download the presentation from the first link above. You can download it from Microsoft here:
I have put a much smaller version of the viewer on my website, but I haven’t tested it with this presentation. You need to download and run it on your computer and it will install the PowerPoint viewer. Then download the presentation from the first link above. That viewer file is here:
http://www.dogownersrights.com/calgary/ppviewer.exe
I have also converted it to two different web versions that you can view with your web browser. You won’t need any PowerPoint viewer to see these, but any animations in the presentation won’t work.
The first is a single big file (11 MB). I would strongly suggest that you right-click on the link, choose “Save As” or “Save Target As”, save it to your computer, and open it from there. If you choose to open it online, then be patient. It will take a while for the first slide to even show up. The file is here:
http://www.dogownersrights.com/calgary/presentation.mht
If that doesn’t work for you, then you can view a normal web page, but you can’t download it. It will only work online. It’s here: