The heated conversation about animal sheltering in Danville has cooled over the past few months, with the two opposing groups each pursuing initiatives that they think will make a difference for the city’s animals. Change is slowly occurring, with lower euthanasia rates reported in 2024 than the previous year.
The Danville Area Humane Society, the city’s municipal shelter, is increasing accessibility for its spay and neuter programming, it announced in a press release Feb. 1.
Meanwhile, Danville Deserves Better, a local grassroots campaign launched to call for changes at the shelter, is continuing to run its pet pantry and collaborative spay and neuter initiatives.
The two groups clashed in the fall over the shelter’s euthanasia rates, which were about eight times higher than the state average in 2023.
The Virginia Department of Animal and Consumer Services reports animal custody numbers for each shelter in the state every January. The most recent figures, released Jan. 30, show a decrease in euthanized animals at the shelter in 2024.
In 2023, the Danville Area Humane Society euthanized about 80%, or 2,797, of the 3,499 animals that it took in, according to VDACS data. In 2024, the shelter euthanized 65%, or 2,213 of the 3,362 animals it took in.
The state rate for euthanasias across all sheltering agencies tracked by VDACS was 9.5% in 2024.
The decrease in euthanized cats in Danville was the sharpest, with 1,753 in 2023 and 1,143 in 2024.
“Those are animals that have made out alive that might not necessarily have had that outcome last year,” said Dave Wesolowski, campaign manager for Danville Deserves Better.
Both Wesolowski and Paulette Dean, who runs the municipal shelter, attributed this decrease to transfers to other shelters.
“We believe that the 2024 numbers proved that 2023 was a difficult year for us, and for all shelters and groups,” Dean said in an email. “Things seemed to ease a little bit in 2024 and we were able to transfer more animals out.”
Animal shelters transfer animals to satisfy supply and demand. Ideally, animals in overpopulated shelters can be shifted to areas with high adoption rates.
The Danville shelter has transferred animals for years, Dean said, but recently assigned a staff member and a volunteer to look for new adoption partners.
Dean also said there has been an increase in adoptions.
Donations to the shelter have remained steady, and there has been no increase in volunteers or fosters, she said.
Conflicting sheltering ideology led to tension
Transfers are a great place to start, Wesolowski said, “but there’s so much more that can be done.”
Danville Deserves Better last fall launched a campaign of social media posts, television commercials and a presence at city council meetings, calling for changes at the shelter.
Campaign members said that the shelter’s euthanasia rates had been too high for years, and they complained that shelter leaders had been unresponsive to offers to help.
But shelter staff and supporters disagreed with the campaign’s suggested solutions and said that lowering euthanasia rates is a highly complex problem. At the heart of the dispute is a disagreement over what kind of shelter Danville should have.
Danville Deserves Better is funded by Best Friends Animal Society, a national animal welfare nonprofit that wants to see every shelter in the country switch to a no-kill, or limited-intake, model, which reserves euthanasia for terminally ill animals, those with a poor quality of life or those that are considered dangerous to the public. No-kill shelters must turn away animals when they reach capacity.
The Danville shelter has always operated as an open-intake facility, meaning that it accepts every animal that comes its way.
Euthanasia rates are typically higher at open-intake shelters, which can’t close their doors to new arrivals when they run out of space. This is a particular challenge in Danville, where the municipal shelter is the only one in town — there are no private shelters to help shoulder the intake, and no plans to open one.
“Community members have raised that opinion to us, but that’s not something we’re doing,” Wesolowski said. The campaign’s focus is on the pet pantry and spay/neuter and vaccination efforts, he said.
Two sides launch separate efforts
Wesolowski said the tension between Danville Deserves Better and the shelter has eased in recent months.
“There’s been a little détente,” he said. “The tension doesn’t serve anybody. That doesn’t serve the animals, it doesn’t serve the staff, it doesn’t serve the community.”
Dean disagreed.
“There has been no difference in our relationship with Best Friends and their local supporters,” she said. “We continue to monitor their online comments.” For a time last year, Dean said that she and members of her staff were receiving threats via social media and in person, and she blamed the campaign for stirring up hate toward the shelter.
In October, both groups announced developments designed to better serve the animals in the community, after a monthslong debate with few actionable steps taken.
The shelter said that it would update its strategic plan, and that part of the process would involve meetings with community stakeholders, like local Best Friends representatives.
Wesolowski said that two campaign members attend these meetings, and that the process is going well so far.
The strategic planning committee met for the final time Feb. 5, Dean said, and the drafting process will now begin. She hopes to see the process complete within the next month.
The shelter has made some other changes that the campaign requested, Wesolowski said, like posting adoptable animals on the site Petfinder and on social media, as well as digitizing its records.
Meanwhile, Danville Deserves Better opened a pet pantry in the city’s River District.
It has given away 4,362 pounds of food to Danville pet owners since its December opening.
This service helps people who are struggling financially keep their pets instead of surrendering them to a shelter, which in turn helps keep the shelter population down, Wesolowski said.
“When you’re surrendering a pet for a temporary financial need, you think you’re doing the right thing, and sometimes you are, but in some cases, you just need a little help to get through and keep your family member with you,” he said. “Hard times don’t last forever. The people coming in here just need a little help.”
Danville Deserves Better also collaborates with Homeward Trails, an Arlington-based animal welfare nonprofit that runs clinics to neuter and vaccinate feral cats in Danville.
The Danville shelter also has its own spay and neuter service, and it has sponsored a variety of spay-neuter assistance programs since 1984.
The shelter provides vouchers that partially cover the cost of the surgery and will increase the rebate amount to $150, according to its February announcement.
The shelter will pay up to $250 for pit bulls, Great Pyrenees, Huskies and German shepherds to be spayed or neutered, which are harder to place in permanent homes, the release said.
It will also continue its program of paying the full cost to spay or neuter cats that are kept strictly outside on personal property, as well as provide rabies shots.
“We remain committed to our belief that the only true way to decrease euthanasia is to decrease the number of litters being born,” Dean said.
Overall, the events of the past few months have been positive and encouraging, Wesolowski said.
“It really shows that life saving increases are possible here,” he said. “When we first started, we weren’t sure about that. … This proves that you can make these changes, you can save more lives.”