Prediction of adoption versus euthanasia among dogs and cats in a California animal

The purpose of this retrospective cohort study was to investigate determinants of adoption of cats and dogs from a large municipal animal shelter. The subjects were 4,813 cats and 3,301 dogs impounded by the Sacramento County Department of Ani-mal Care and Regulation and offered for adoption September 9, 1994 to May 26, 1995. The study constructed models predicting the conditional probability of adop-tion using logistic regression and a final multiple logistic regression model from vari-ables found to be important predictors of adoption. Age, sex, coat color, and reason for relinquishment were major determinants of adoption in cats. Age, sex, coat color, reason for relinquishment, breed, purebred status, and injury status were major deter-minants of adoption in dogs. Shelter personnel could utilize this information to in-crease the adoption of frequently overlooked animals. Alternatively, shelters could use this to focus their resources on animals with characteristics the public prefers. Millions of dogs and cats (Carter, 1987; Rowan, 1992) are annually impounded in the United States in animal shelters. The majority of these companion animals are never adopted or reclaimed by their owners and instead must be humanely destroyed. This wholesale euthanasia of unwanted dogs and cats has been recog-nized by our society as both tragic and wasteful. Euthanasia is probably the most conspicuous and unpalatable manifestation of what has been called the “pet overpopulation problem.” The number of dogs and cats annually euthanized in the United States has been estimated as between 5 million and 17 million nonhuman animals (Carter, 1987