Does Location Matter: Analyzing the Impact of Geographic Variation on Adoption Rates For Shelter Dogs

Abstract

Unwanted companion animals are a significant problem in the United States, and the numbers of dogs entering the sheltering system has been increasing recently. The interplay of numerous organizational and animal factors, such as where a shelter is located in the country, its population density, and the type of organization as well as the size and age of the dog, how it arrived to the shelter, and its outcome, can significantly impact the length of stay for dogs in shelters. The current study utilized records from 2023 collected by Shelter Animals Count, a nonprofit organization that maintains a centralized database of United States animal sheltering data, to investigate whether the lengths of stay of dogs residing in U.S. differ based on the shelter’s geographic region or density of the population in that area to better understand how to address the time animals reside in shelters. The findings underscore a consistent trend across multiple regions: suburban shelters tend to achieve shorter stays for dogs compared to those in urban and rural areas with differences found by organization type. Generally, dogs’ lengths of stay at Northern, Midwestern and Western shelters are shorter than dogs residing in shelters in other regions across the United States, although these stays differed by the type of organization. Furthermore, we found that a dog’s size and its age affected its time in the shelter, such that older dogs have increased lengths of stay. This research provides a foundation for future study and offers an overview of the impact of geographic and animal variation on positive outcomes for dogs living in animal shelters.