Pet Surrender Prevention Tips for Shelter Staff

The decision to surrender a pet is extremely difficult and heart-breaking, and it’s not a choice that any pet owner hopes to make when they first welcome a new pet into their home. Unfortunately, the toll this decision takes both on the individual animal’s well-being and an animal shelter’s operations is significant. While not all cases of pet surrender are preventable, animal shelter workers can help keep pets with their families through proactive communication and providing resources to pet owners in need.

In this article, we’ll discuss why pet surrender prevention matters, surrender risks, and tools that work for keeping pets in homes.

Why Pet Surrender Prevention Matters

According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), around 29% of animals that entered shelters in 2024 were surrendered by their owners. Surrendered animals contribute to shelter overcrowding, which directly impacts the mental and physical health of on-site animals. The emotional toll of caring for surrendered animals is also a factor in compassion fatigue and burnout among shelter staff workers.

By keeping pets with their families, animal shelters can protect animals, the well-being of their staff, and the financial stability of the shelter. With fewer surrendered animals to care for, the shelter can provide more attention to those already in their care.

When a shelter isn’t exceeding its capacity for care, medical issues are usually noticed earlier (when they’re more treatable), and errors are less likely to occur. For every animal that remains with their family rather than entering the shelter system, the shelter saves time and money.

Common Reasons Pet Owners Surrender Their Pets

According to Best Friends Animal Society, pet owners are about twice as likely to surrender their pet due to human factors than they are to relinquish them due to factors related to the pet itself. 24PetWatch data from January 2018 to September 2020 indicate that the top five reasons that people cite for relinquishing their pet include:

• Too many pets already in the home (around 16% of cases)
• Housing issues (around 14% of cases)
• Caretaker or family health issues or death (around 10% of cases)
• Non-aggressive behavioral issues (around 8% of cases)
• Financial issues (around 7% of cases)

Of these top five reasons, note that only one—non-aggressive behavioral issues—is related to the individual animal rather than the person’s situation. Some of these issues can overlap. For example, a pet owner with housing instability may also experience financial issues.

All of this to say that most pet surrenders aren’t the animal’s “fault.” What this tells us is that pet owner support and pet assistance programs may go a long way in reducing pet surrender.

Empathy and Communication: The First Line of Defense

Staff members must be taught how to approach surrender conversations with compassion and without judgment. They should keep in mind that for many pet owners, the decision to surrender a pet is incredibly difficult.

Train staff to use open-ended questions during surrender discussions. Through open, nonjudgmental discussion, staff members may uncover the real reason(s) the owner is surrendering and whether the shelter can offer support to keep the pet in their home.

Examples of open-ended questions for staff members to ask include:

• What has led you to surrender your pet?
• How would you describe your pet’s behavior?
• What are your pet’s medical needs?
• How can we support you in keeping your pet?

During communication training, it’s a great idea to roleplay surrender discussions and utilize training scripts that emphasize empathetic communication.

Key Pet Surrender Prevention Strategies

The shelter should have strategies in place to help keep pets with their families. Here, we’ll cover several pet retention strategies the shelter can use to assist pet owners in keeping their pets.

Financial assistance:

• Connect the owner with a low-cost or non-profit veterinary clinic
• Run a pet food pantry or direct pet owners to organizations that have one
• Provide voucher programs for veterinary care
• Offer low-cost spay and neuter services
• Offer low-cost or free vaccine clinics
• Utilize grants to cover portions of medical expenses for families who need pet crisis support

Behavioral support:

• Provide access to reliable trainers who focus on positive reinforcement
• Have a behavior helpline that pet owners can contact for behavioral advice
• Make online consultations available

Temporary Care Options:

• Help families in crisis with short-term fosters or boarding
• Collaborate with domestic violence shelters to provide housing for pets

Transportation Assistance:

• Operate a mobile clinic
• Offer transportation vans to help bring animals to the clinic
• Partner with veterinary clinics to host clinics in underserved areas

Remember, you will not be able to prevent all cases of pet surrender, especially if there is an aggressive behavior behind the decision. However, any healthy, non-aggressive pet you manage to support in their home is a win for the animal, the family, and your organization.

Building and Promoting Pet Retention Resources

Your organization should create a public-facing list of community resources for struggling pet owners. This list should be available both online and in-person and should include your shelter’s resources as well as any other community resources that may be helpful.

To promote and share your resources with community members in need, consider partnering with social service agencies, food banks, domestic violence shelters, and housing programs. You could also distribute your list to animal control organizations and veterinary clinics.

Your resources should be accessible to a variety of people. When developing fliers or putting posts on social media, consider writing these materials in multiple languages, especially if you have a lot of people in your area for whom English is not the native language.

Of course, your staff should be trained to quickly reference and share available resources, as well.

Shelter Staff Training and Support

All staff members can benefit from training in empathetic communication and crisis response, but these trainings should be essential for intake team members. For any potential pet surrender, you should encourage problem-solving rather than taking the animal from their home (unless there are concerns for abuse or neglect, of course). Schedule regular refresher courses to review how to have these conversations.

Check in with your staff members. Ask what seems to be working to prevent pet surrender and what isn’t working. Ensure they understand what issues need to be escalated and what decisions they have the power to make on their own.

Tracking and Measuring Impact

Once you’ve got training in place for staff members and have shifted your team towards a problem-solving approach to preventing pet relinquishment, you’ll want to measure whether your changes are having an impact.

The following are questions to consider as you track your progress:

• What number or percentage of surrenders are prevented?
• Do we have specific animals who are being surrendered multiple times?
• Do we have multiple animals getting surrendered by one owner?
• How are our community pet resources being utilized?
• What resource is being utilized the most?
• Are we consistently running out of a particular resource?
• Are community members requesting a specific resource or animal shelter program that we don’t currently offer?
• How much money goes towards pet surrender prevention, and how does this compare to the amount that would be spent if all these pet owners had relinquished their pets?

Empowering Staff to Keep Pets in Homes

Shelter staff are essential advocates for families in crisis and should be trained to approach potential pet surrenders with empathy and open minds. Preventing surrender and keeping pets with their families is a primary example of the compassionate care that modern animal shelters can provide. Rather than focusing simply on placing pets with people, shelters are encouraged to take on a “keep pets with their people” mindset across all shelter operations.