Capacity for Care
Shadow, a bouncy black Lab, was only a block away from the yard he’d escaped when he was taken to a crowded shelter across town, another adventurer no one recognized.
Whether a dog needs help getting home or finding a new one, timely care is the strongest predictor of a positive outcome. For dogs separated from their owners, the odds of reuniting with their family plummet after the first 24-48 hours. Dogs without identification that already have a family can get lost in the system and, in the best-case scenario, find a new home, often one needed by a dog with no other option.
Yet shelters across the country are under growing strain, and their ability to manage everyday tasks like searching for lost pet parents is at risk. Compounding the pressure, veterinary services are stretched thin statewide: nearly 60% of shelters report lacking a veterinarian or being critically understaffed. When veterinary care is limited, the flow of animals through shelters constricts. Dogs stay an average of 27.5 days longer. Even dogs with a positive outcome within reach, like Shadow, can get stuck in the system.
Veterinarians with the Koret Shelter Medicine Program (KSMP) at UC Davis are working alongside shelters to address this challenge—applying research, data, and clinical expertise to strengthen the systems that make animal care possible.
Their work centers on a foundational concept in shelter medicine: Capacity for Care. This view asks a simple but powerful question: What population size allows a shelter to meet the individual needs of every animal in its care?
The answer depends on three interconnected factors: staffing, physical space and resources, and the time it takes animals to move through the shelter. When these elements are in balance, dogs receive timely medical treatment, behavioral support, and enrichment while staying only as long as necessary. Stress and disease risk decline, and shelter teams can deliver high-quality care without becoming overwhelmed.
Veterinary research and shelter collaboration have demonstrated the power of this approach before. Through the nationwide Million Cat Challenge, shelters applied Capacity for Care principles to transform outcomes for cats. By prioritizing spay/neuter and vaccination for community cats thriving outdoors and reserving shelter resources for animals who truly needed them, shelters dramatically improved survival. Before the challenge began, only about one in four cats left shelters alive. Since then, more than five million additional cats have been saved, making it the world’s largest feline lifesaving initiative to date.
At UC Davis, shelter medicine specialists are continuing to study and refine these models, translating research into practical tools that help shelters deliver better medical care while protecting animal welfare.
Dogs often require longer stays and more individualized medical and behavioral care, which can slow movement through the sheltering system. KSMP veterinarians are partnering with shelters to refine Capacity for Care strategies for dogs by reviewing clinical protocols, identifying efficiencies that expand the reach of limited veterinary resources, and developing practical tools that help shelters manage population health more effectively.
This work is also advancing new resources that will allow shelters to calculate and maintain their own Capacity for Care metrics. These data-driven tools will help organizations stabilize populations, reduce length of stay, and better ensure veterinary care is available when animals need it most.
For shelters, maintaining Capacity for Care means more than improving efficiency. It means protecting animal welfare, supporting veterinary teams, and ensuring that every dog receives timely care.
Shadow made his way home in days, not weeks. With the right conditions in place—and continued advances in veterinary science—other dogs will too.