Banking on KC – Tori Fugate of KC Pet Project
Listen Now, or read the transcript below:
Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Tori Fugate, the Chief Communications Officer at KC Pet Project. Welcome, Tori.
Tori Fugate:
Thank you so much for having me today.
Kelly Scanlon:
How is KC Pet Project re-imagining the role of animal services in our community?
Tori Fugate:
Yeah. Well, what we see at KC Pet Project and in Kansas City here is actually a pretty unique situation. It's not something that you see a lot in other communities, and so KC Pet Project was formed not even 12 years ago. We're almost to our anniversary. January 1st will be the 12th year of us as an organization, so we're still relatively young. But we were formed for the sole purpose of taking on the Kansas City, Missouri animal sheltering contract back in 2012. And at the time, the city had been running the shelter, and it was sort of what the old pound mentality was.
Kelly Scanlon:
Right. In fact, I think if I remember right, it was just called the dog pound.
Tori Fugate:
Yeah. It was just animal control facility for Kansas City. And historically over the years, they were having to euthanize about 70% of the animals that were coming through there. It was incredibly high. And so, Kansas City really said, "There's this new movement of the no-kill philosophy and things like that coming through, and we really want an organization to save lives in Kansas City." And so, when the city put out a bid for somebody to run the shelter, no one bid on it. It was considered... It was 1972 when the shelter was built, and it was actually never supposed to be an animal shelter. It was used to house the equipment that they built Arrowhead in Kauffman stadiums with. So it was just a shed basically out on Raytown Road.
And so, a group of animal welfare advocates got together and said, "You know, we can can do better than 70. We're going to figure this out." And so, they submitted a bid for the RFP and was awarded the contract. So we started, we had like 23 employees, hardly anybody actually working for the organization that had animal experience. And I joined in the third month of the organization. I've been there since 2012. We just kind of did our own thing. We were like, "We're going to do whatever it takes to save lives in Kansas City." We adopted the motto, Solutions, not Excuses. With an old shelter, there was a lot of excuses that we could have had. "Oh, we just can't do it. We don't have the space, we don't have the room, we don't have anything."
And so, we just re-imagined animal sheltering basically. And we opened Arizona Rosa Adoption Center in 2012. We opened a Petco Adoption Center in Overland Park a couple years later. Now we're in the KC Campus for Animal Care in Swope Park. It's a gorgeous facility. If you haven't been there, please come. We have a coffee shop, we have a retail store in there. So you can come not just to adopt a pet, but it was really, we wanted it to be a community hub for people to come and enjoy. So we have that, and we now have the animal control contract for the City of Kansas City as well. So a huge amount of people doing a lot of really important work in Kansas City.
Kelly Scanlon:
But the biggest accomplishment that you've had, you've got these relationships and so forth in the community now, you are able to take over from the Kansas City efforts, and you went from high-kill to no-kill.
Tori Fugate:
We did. Within six months of taking on that contract, we were saving over 90% of all the pets coming into the shelter. And to be considered a no-kill animal shelter is 90% of all animals that come into your shelter leave through positive outcomes, and that's every animal. So those are the tiniest of kittens that are two days old that come in without a mom. Those are injured animals that have been hit by a car, or have been shot, or variety of things that we see. So that's considered every single animal that comes in. This year we are around 93% so far. And so, we have been able to maintain that no-kill status now for almost 12 years.
But it's been a huge challenge this year. I think a lot of people, when they hear the term no-kill, you think that a shelter doesn't have to euthanize. And every single shelter out there has to euthanize in some capacity. And so of course, if an animal is too injured, or too ill that they cannot survive, those animals would be considered for humane euthanasia. If an animal is a danger to the public at large, we know that it's an aggressive dog that we cannot safely place in a home, those animals would be considered for humane euthanasia. It is a very busy place every day. And we are just constantly tracking these animals to make sure that we can get as many live outcomes as we possibly can, even when we're getting 40 to 60 new animals every single day.
Kelly Scanlon:
That's just incredible, and that you're able to maintain that rate with that many.
Tori Fugate:
And we are very, very busy. This year has been the busiest and the hardest year for us that we've ever had in our organization's history.
Kelly Scanlon:
Because you're seeing a lot of animals being given up for various reasons.
Tori Fugate:
Actually, there are new pets that are coming into the shelter. It's something that you would think, when COVID hit everybody came to adopt a pet. People were mad that we didn't have pets during COVID. They wanted to foster, they wanted to adopt. We had 900 people sign up to foster pets for us within the first two weeks after the shutdown in 2020. And so everybody wanted to adopt a pet. These are all new pets that's coming into the shelter. If you adopt a pet from a shelter, you're going to have a pet that's micro-chipped. You're going to have information about where this animal came from. These are for the most part, all new animals that people have owned their entire lives.
What is impacting our community is impacting their pets as well. You think about the fact that, of all the residents of Kansas, City, Missouri, about 60 to 70% of people own pets. If they are having trouble with putting food on the table for their family, buying groceries, they're also having trouble with being able to afford things for their animals. The number one reason that pets are being surrendered to our shelter is a lack of veterinary care options for them.
Kelly Scanlon:
They can't afford to have their animals... The medical treatments that they need.
Tori Fugate:
Yes. In Kansas City we have some resources for people for low cost options for veterinary care, but we don't have enough for the amount of people that we have in Kansas City Transportation is a big barrier for a lot of people. And housing is also the other significant reason that pets are having to be surrendered. People can't find a place to live that will allow their pets, especially large dogs, dogs over 30 pounds. Breed restrictions can still impact people. We don't have enough affordable housing options in Kansas City. And if they can't find a place to live for themselves, the chances of them finding pet-friendly housing is very slim. Or they're having to move in with somebody who already has animals. But the other big increase this year has been stray pets.
Kelly Scanlon:
You've got the 14 adoption centers across Kansas City. You mentioned the Petco relationship. You also mentioned the KC Campus for Animal Care, which didn't open until 2020, so that is a relatively new facility. And what has the opening of that meant for you in terms of the fact that you are getting in more animals, that you are more than maintaining the 90% no-kill rate?
Tori Fugate:
It's really tremendous that we've been in the KC Campus for Animal Care these last three years. And if we had been in the old shelter, I don't even know what we would've done. We barely even had wifi in the old shelter. It was rough. We had a vet clinic that was housed in construction trailers that we built. I mean, we were very creative with how to move animals in and out of the shelter. And historically we had been taking in about 10 to 11,000 pets a year for around five years. So when we designed the shelter, we built it thinking that we were going to be housing that number of pets.
But if you would've asked me in 2019 if we were going to take in 16,000 pets, I would've laughed. There's no way that we would've taken that many animals in. But really, as soon as that stay-at-home order lifted in July of 2020, that was when we started to see the impact. And literally, every single thing that has happened since from an economic perspective has impacted animals. We have amazing programs now in place to try to keep people and pets together. We're doing some amazing work with that program. But really the resources are so incredibly needed, we just don't have enough resources for Kansas City.
Kelly Scanlon:
The name of it's Keep 'Em Together KC. Tell us about some of the efforts behind that program.
Tori Fugate:
We launched that program in May of 2020. And we kind of had this moment where we all looked at each other as an industry and we just said, "We're doing this wrong." If you would've brought an animal to us and said, "I need to surrender my pet," we would've been like, "Okay, here's the paperwork. We'll just find a new home for them." Then we all had this collective moment where we were like, "Why are we doing that? Why aren't we working to keep these animals together?" We were providing resources when people asked, but really when it came to people surrendering their animals, we were just like, "Okay, I guess that's the only option."
Kelly Scanlon:
It was just a foredrawn conclusion.
Tori Fugate:
Yeah, it was, just as an industry. And so, we started the Keep 'Em Together Program, and it's entirely operated thanks to donations that we get to the program. And there's multiple layers of it now. It's a huge robust program. We've hired many staff to be a part of this program. But it's really just, if somebody comes to us in need of help, we do everything we can to help them. If they want to keep their animal, and it's just a simple resource that we could provide, we do that. Medical care for pets, they can apply for assistance to be able to provide medical care. We've removed tumors for people before.
We have a full service veterinary clinic for our shelter animals, and then some owned animals on a case-by-case basis, but mainly it's, we do about 10,000 surgeries a year, spay/neuter surgeries and everything, all in-house with our own veterinary team. So we have an incredible team of doctors who are there every day. We have at least three doctors usually every single day on-site. It's like a trauma center. Some days we'll get injured animals and animals that need immediate veterinary care, and they just drop everything that they're doing to take care of them. It's an amazing operation to see.
And through the Keep 'Em Together Program, we're also providing, when people lose their animals, we provide a lot of resources to try to help them find their animals. Prior to us having the animal control contract, if your animal ever went missing, even if it was just for an hour or two and ended up at the shelter, you would get a ticket in the mail. After you came and paid a lot of fees to get your pet out, you would get a ticket in the mail that you had a stray at large.
We dropped that, because we heard from residents that that was a barrier to coming in, picking up their pets. So now, if it's a repeat offender, we can still have some level of enforcement there. But, if it's just your pet got out once, we just want you to come get your dog. We want you to come get your pet. Because the last place that we want them in is an kennel in the shelter.
Kelly Scanlon:
So keeping the owners and their pets together, and trying to overcome some of the fundamental issues that are causing them to come and surrender the pets to begin with. What are some of the other kinds of programs and services? You mentioned the veterinary services. What are some of the other programs and services that you have there?
Tori Fugate:
We do a lot of events and things like that throughout the community. And so, we usually get at least four semi-trucks a year full of food and resources that we will literally just set up in our parking lot, and have people drive through and get them. We're gearing up for winter weather, and so we do an event every year with our animal services division, and other animal outreach groups and animal welfare groups. We'll all come together and pool our resources, and we do what we call Project Pet Warmth.
Where we will set up in the parking lot, usually in Midtown, Kansas City, and we will distribute dog houses, igloos for dogs, community cat houses, food, dog sweaters, like all sorts of things just to help keep pets warm during the winter months. And we have a line that's wrapped around the block for hours. And then we do some vaccination events, micro-chipping events, that sort of thing when we can. With the intakes of animals this year, it's been a bit challenging for us to be able to do some of the events that we love to do.
Kelly Scanlon:
But it's kind of a vicious circle when you can't be out there doing the events that get at some of the fundamental issues for why they're surrendered to begin with, the lack of food, maybe not a good knowledge of how to keep them safe in colder temperatures, and some of the other things that you mentioned. Well, then they're going to end up in your shelters, so you're constantly fighting that circle.
Tori Fugate:
Yeah, it is. And all of us that do this work in Kansas City, we are constantly talking about what all we need to do. We're looking at doing more spay/neuter initiatives in Kansas City, just seeing if we can get some more pets spayed and neutered. They estimate... There was actually a study done during COVID that, when all the veterinary clinics also shut down during COVID, even for three to six months, that it put us 3 million spay/neuter surgeries behind, just during those months from a national perspective. And so, we're still catching up from that. We were kind of in a really good spot when the pandemic started. And because of that, it has just kind of snowballed into this effect that we're now seeing.
Kelly Scanlon:
You just really don't think about all of those kinds of consequences. There's others that make the news, COVID related impact, but you don't think about that. What are some of the other animals that you take in? I know everybody thinks of dogs, and maybe secondarily thinks about cats. But what are some of the other kinds of little creatures that you see in your doors?
Tori Fugate:
Oh my goodness. Well, it's always funny. People ask us if we could take in more dogs or more cats, and it's actually 50/50. So, we take in about 7500 cats and we're going to do over 8000 dogs this year, which is crazy. That's more dogs than I ever would've imagined. We take in a lot of small animals, so bunnies, rabbits. And we usually have rabbits available for adoption at our Petco Adoption Center in Overland Park, or in foster homes. We take in rats, and hamsters, and Guinea pigs, and things like that. But reptiles...
Kelly Scanlon:
You do take reptiles?
Tori Fugate:
Oh, yes. If it's considered a pet, it comes to us, other than large livestock like horses and cattle. But our Animal Services team does have to respond to, like if there's a stray horse, they have to go out and respond. They're literally usually walking around trying to figure out who the horse belongs to, and they can usually get it back home. And so they're responding to calls all the time to bats in homes. This is the time of year.
Kelly Scanlon:
You get the calls for the bats?
Tori Fugate:
If there is a bat in your home, other than in your attic or a crawlspace in the basement, we respond to those calls. So, bats pose a rabies risk. Most bats that are in your homes will not be a rabies risk. But it's important that if there is a bat in the home that you call us, and we come and get the bat. We actually have a partnership that we work with, Lakeside Nature Center, and they have volunteers who rehabilitate the bats to make sure that they are not carrying rabies. And if they're not, then they release them back out into the community, which is actually a really innovative program. There's not a lot of places that are doing programs like that. And so, it's really remarkable kind of all the things that we're doing in Kansas City, that-
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah, it is.
Tori Fugate:
... makes us really cool, because nobody else is doing it.
Kelly Scanlon:
No, it is, and with such a small staff too. What is the adoption process? What does it entail? What are the guidelines? How long does it take?
Tori Fugate:
Yeah. It depends on the day. But we do a lot of specials for adoption, and that's really, we want these animals to get into homes. And so specials are great, because it just alerts everybody that we have a pet that's going out for a low cost. On average, we put in about $400 per animal, at least, 400 to $500 of care per animal, and every Wednesday you can get a dog for free.
Kelly Scanlon:
Really, Wednesdays.
Tori Fugate:
We do waive fee Wednesday, every Wednesday on dogs that are over 20 pounds or over six months of age, which is the majority of the dogs that we have. And so it's free to adopt. You would pay for any retail that you purchase, and a city license if you live in Kansas City, Missouri. But yeah, they're free to adopt every Wednesday. We are gearing up for the holidays, we do a huge Home for the Holidays campaign. We'll do a Black Friday campaign. So, anytime that somebody's off work, we're doing adoption specials. So, every major holiday we have a special, because that's a great time to come and get a pet with your family.
And on some of those days it can take a little bit longer. Usually you have to budget at least a couple hours if it's during the weekday, maybe longer on the weekends you want to give some more time. Cats at our Petco locations, that's a pretty quick process to adopt. But when there's dogs involved, we want you to meet the dogs that you want to meet. If we have to introduce your dogs or dogs to one of ours, we have to accommodate for that. But it's nice at the campus, because we have a coffee shop, so you can hang out and have a latte or a smoothie while you're waiting to adopt your new dog.
And we have a great retail store. So, everything that you would ever need to purchase for your pet is there. And then you can take your new pet home with all the things that they need. We have a very open adoption philosophy. So, if you are walking in the door and you want a pet, we want to find you a pet. And so we're just making sure on our end that it's the best fit. If we have a dog that we absolutely know would not thrive in an apartment lifestyle, this dog needs a yard that he can run in, or whatever it is, then we're going to make some suggestions and things like that. But we're going to find you a pet that would be a good fit.
Kelly Scanlon:
And I know that you do a lot of work online, on your website, and through social media to help promote some of the dogs that you do have in your care, so that people can see that before they even come.
Tori Fugate:
You can. And our website's great, because you can sort by age, you can sort by type of dog you're looking for. We also have a great program, it's our pet alert system, it's under the adoptions tab of our website, where you can sign up to get an alert when a pet that you are wanting, matches, comes in. So, if you are wanting to adopt a Husky, first of all, this has been the year of the Huskies. If you want to adopt a Husky, we are getting them in like crazy. But you can actually go on and get an email every single time that a dog, that a Husky matching your criteria becomes available.
And so, that's a great system. We have a free mobile app that you can download to see all of our pets. And then, yeah, if you're not following us on social media, I highly recommend you to follow us, especially on TikTok. We have over a million followers on our TikTok page. And it's really just showing our pets being pets. And it's really great to go on and just see these adorable dogs in action. And then we also are on Facebook and Instagram, so you can always follow us.
Kelly Scanlon:
And you get a little sense of their personality maybe.
Tori Fugate:
Yeah, absolutely. We have a great program too, that's called Our Dog Day Out Program, that you can come and literally just take a dog out for the day. And so, this is great if you're super busy, you feel like now is not a great time to adopt, even fostering, it's like, "I just don't think I have the time." If you're off work on a Saturday or whatever day of the week, and you want to come and take a dog out for the day, it's an incredibly rewarding experience. Because it helps this dog get out of the shelter and relax for the day, and hang out outside of his kennel, which is great for the dog. But also when these dogs come in as strays, we literally know nothing about them, other than an estimated age and kind of what breed they are. This helps us learn so much about them.
It helps us be able to market them, because now we can show this dog doing things that you as the adopter are going to be doing. You're going to Starbucks to get a pup cup. You're going to Loose Park to hang out for the day and take a big long walk. Or you're going to go home and nap on the couch with this dog. Whatever it is, it helps create that emotional connection. So when you see that dog on Instagram or whatever, you're like, "That could be my dog." And so, that is a super easy and great way. It's so easy to sign up. You can make an appointment immediately to come pick up a dog from any of our locations.
Kelly Scanlon:
You're obviously very, very passionate about the work that you do. And you not only communicate the brand of KC Pet Project, you also personally advocate on behalf of animals. You have speaking engagements, you give talks, and you've also appeared in a lot of national media. What are some of the messages that you try to get through whenever you take part in these types of activities?
Tori Fugate:
Yeah. I love working with the media. That's actually probably my favorite part. And doing things like this, I absolutely love the opportunity just to get to talk about the work that we're doing, and we are the storytellers of the organization. So, all we're doing is just really highlighting the work that our team, our incredible team, is doing every day. And no matter what it is, I mean, we're constantly just chasing stories all around the shelter. So, asking what people need, asking what our struggles are, highlighting those. We're a very transparent organization. If we need help with something, we put it out there and ask for it.
And especially this year, we've been highlighting a lot on, what it means to be at a crisis level for capacity. And we have other shelters who are constantly reaching out to us asking, "Did this work? We're going through the same thing here. What graphics have you used? What messages have you put out there?" I actually did a talk about this at a national presentation this year, and it's been really great. Our relationship with the media has been so fantastic. They're wonderful to work with, and they are so great about just highlighting everything that we have going on, talking about our wins, talking about our struggles.
We are a very data minded organization, so we are just sharing our data and sharing what is happening in the community every day. We have heat maps of where all of our animal services calls are coming from. Right down to even if there were a lot of bites that happened in a neighborhood. We can drill down and really look at that data, and then build programs and services around what we're learning every day and what we're experiencing. So it's been really amazing, plus I got to be on an episode of Queer Eye, so that was big goals.
Kelly Scanlon:
You were on Rachel Ray too, I believe, right?
Tori Fugate:
I was, yeah. I was on the Rachel Ray show back in 2014. Regis was on that day with her, so that was very fun and unexpected. And they flew me out to promote a little dog that we had named Kia that was found locked in a tow lot parking lot car. She'd been in there for 30 days surviving on trash in the car. And it's really been fun to just experience. We have a TikTok video that was about a dog that, he was super matted, we shaved him down one day, filmed our vet clinic doing that. Just put it out on TikTok to see if it would resonate with people. We were telling the story. Overnight it had 20 million views.
Kelly Scanlon:
I was going to say, how does that not get shared over and over again?
Tori Fugate:
It was just like, we all came in the next day and we were like, "Okay, drop everything that we're doing the rest of the week. It's going to be a busy week." And I was doing interviews with Thailand, and I did the German version of the Today Show, and I did interviews in Oslo, Norway, all these amazing interviews all over talking about this little dog. And he really resonated with so many people. He now lives his best life in Independence, Missouri he has a wonderful family, lives with three other little dogs like him.
Kelly Scanlon:
But you're out there communicating all of the good work and the best practices. Here in Kansas City, what has been achieved can be replicated in other cities. Because as we started this show today, you said that it's very unusual for a city animal shelter to be able to achieve the numbers that you achieve, and to be able to have all of this outreach that you have. Not just caring for the animals that you have there in your facility, but all the outreach you do to the community to try to get to the underlying causes that cause people to surrender. I mean, it's just amazing. And people are turning to you here in Kansas City for like I say, best practices and how can we do it? How can we replicate it?
Tori Fugate:
Yeah, they are. And it's wild, because when I started, nobody knew who we were. We were such an unknown organization, and we didn't have a lot of volunteers. It was a tough place to come and volunteer anyway because of just the old shelter. And now we're the example that every city wants to be like. And we have a lot of partner shelters that we work with. We talk a lot to other cities that are similar with us. I have friends all over the country that we're constantly communicating what's working, what's not working, what we can do more of, how we can evolve as an industry in setting those best practices.
And it's really great for Kansas City to be that shining example so many years later, that this public private partnership with the city has paid off very well. And it's really because of the community that we are able to do the work that we do. We could not do this without people donating, without people volunteering, fostering our animals. I mean, we're going to send over 5000 animals into foster homes this year. And that is just people taking animals into their home from the shelter and caring for them until they're either ready to be adopted or until they get adopted, and people coming up every single day to adopt pets.
And we look at our intake and outcome numbers every single day, and there's so many days that there are more intakes than there were outcomes. And that's been the biggest struggle this year. But for the community to respond and to help us in the ways that they have, we have been able to stay over a 90% save rate for every single animal coming in. More animals coming in means more resources. And so, because of the donations that we get, we are able to put that money back into the care of all of these animals. We have volunteer groups from corporate groups that come out all week long. I know you all just came out-
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah, Country Club Bank comes out, yes.
Tori Fugate:
Yes. And volunteered for the day. And so, that is so helpful. Because we've been staffed, and our staff has taken care of 300 dogs a day. So having those extra hands is hugely beneficial. There's so many ways to get involved. All of that information is on our website. We try to make it really easy to sign up and get involved with organizations, and we're always open to other ideas of how we can partner.
Kelly Scanlon:
So, that would be kcpetproject.org?
Tori Fugate:
Yes.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. Kcpetproject.org, you can go out there, take a look at all of the pets that are available to adopt right now. And then also take a look at the ways that you can help support a KC Pet Project. Tori, thank you so much for spending your time today talking with us about this wonderful project. Congratulations on really the huge turnaround in 12 years, and for all you're doing too, to share it with other communities. Thank you.
Tori Fugate:
Thank you so much for having me.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Tori Fugate for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. It's common to spin resources and energy on problems once we're confronted with them. But true change occurs when we can get ahead of a problem, and attack its roots. That's exactly how Tori and the team at KC Pet are trying to stem the homeless pet problem. Besides finding homes for pets already at KC Pet Project, they offer several community programs aimed at pet retention, including the Keep 'Em Together KC Program, and Pet Medical Services.
Tackling problems at their core may be challenging, but it's the most effective way to instigate real change. KC Pet Project exemplifies this proactive approach, and our associates are happy to work with their team to be part of the solution. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City. Country Club Bank, member FDIC.