Our mission statement is clear: to end the shelter euthanasia of every healthy and treatable animal in our city’s shelters. This mission is a years-long journey, but our current reality – high intake that is outpacing our available space and ability to find positive outcomes for each pet – has forced us to take a devastating detour.
More immediately, we have a commitment to creating the most humane environment possible for the animals in our care. That includes accepting our building limitations and adhering to a high standard of health and safety for the pets who arrive at our doors.
We understand that this topic is difficult to come to terms with, but we owe it to ourselves and our community to transparently share the process behind the decisions we are forced to make each week. We hope you will continue reading with an open mind and compassion for the human beings who would do everything in their power to change these circumstances for all shelters and rescues.
Month over month outcome statistics can be found here. To breakdown July 2025 as an example:
- 990 pets were taken in to Fulton County Animal Services, and 78 pets were euthanized. 47 of these euthanasias were done for behavioral or space reasons.
- 952 pets were taken in to DeKalb County Animal Services, and 57 pets were euthanized. 18 of these euthanasias were done for behavioral or space reasons.
- Untreatable medical or behavioral conditions
- Mental and physical deterioration due to long-stay kennel stress
- Lack of space due to intake outpacing placement options.
We report monthly lifesaving rates for our shelters that often exceed the “No Kill” standard (which is 90%). Our focus is not about a specific number or percentage. Our focus is on making the best decisions for each individual animal in our care. These numbers are lives and we never forget that. Our CEO’s stance on this specific topic can be found here.
The At Risk pages for our county shelters are kept up-to-date daily and can be found here: Fulton County and DeKalb County. These pages are intended to act as a guide for the community so they know at all times, and with full transparency, which dogs are struggling in the shelter and are likely to be at risk for euthanasia soon. Because of the ever-changing nature of the shelter, this list of course is subject to change but we believe it is a helpful resource to help intervene earlier and advocate for those with the greatest need.
LifeLine’s social media team posts euthanasia lists each Wednesday to let the public know which pets are facing a deadline.
If you are a registered volunteer with LifeLine, you can elect to receive an email each Tuesday night with the names on the list.
Deadlines for dogs at risk specifically facing euthanasia for space are determined based on whether or not we meet our humane capacity goals for the week (marked by end of day at the shelters on Tuesday evening). Euthanasias for space are most often done early on Fridays before the shelter opens. This is based on the availability of certified technicians to humanely perform the procedure and time needed to communicate the lists internally and externally in the hope that we can still find safe, long-term placement for the pet. This is why it’s pivotal for adopters and fosters to visit the shelter by close of shelter Thursday at the absolute latest.
Last minute changes are detrimental to our ability to keep shelter populations at reasonable levels. It requires a lot of additional staff bandwidth, which hurts our team’s availability to help the greatest number of animals possible. These decisions are awful for all, but disruptions to the process affect more than just this one animal, and our teams are cognizant of that heavy responsibility.
The LifeLine Community Animal Center is an independently built and operated shelter with the ability for LifeLine to manage the flow of intake from our county shelters.
Because of the smaller number of pets housed in our care at this location, the frequency with which we see pets experience a rapid decline is less than that of our county shelters. The population numbers are more manageable here for our animal care and behavior teams to assess and work with pets on an individual basis.
That said, pets at this location do face humane euthanasia as a rare but potential outcome in the case of medical or behavioral conditions severely affecting their quality of life.
Even with monetary pledges and transportation in place, there has to be available space at rescues on the receiving end of the transport.
We have full-time rescue coordinators at each county shelter reaching out to rescue partners and fielding inquiries from potential new rescue groups. This year, our teams in Fulton and DeKalb counties have managed to place, on average, 207 pets and 180 pets, respectively, every month through rescue partnerships alone.
Even still, rescues across the country are full and often have strict criteria for the types of dogs they pull and when they can pull them. For example: many rescue partners require that dogs spend 2+ weeks quarantined in a foster home in which case we still need help finding short term placement for them.
Bring home a pet of your own through adoption or fostering!
Donate your time and resources.
Stop hateful comments or misinformation from spreading. Words matter! Publicly blaming the shelters or staff for a problem that belongs to all of us causes harm to the staff’s ability to get more dogs into homes.
It is very easy to find fault with an overcrowded shelter. But shelters aren’t the problem. We are where society’s broader failures show up in plain view – economic instability, housing insecurity, lack of affordable veterinary care, overwhelmed human support systems. Blaming shelters for being overcrowded ignores the upstream failures causing the problem and short-circuits any meaningful dialogue toward solutions. And sadly, it risks alienating the very people doing the hardest work – our staff, fosters, and volunteers trying to help animals with limited tools or support.
Above all, help us change the narrative: choose compassion, act with empathy, and be part of the solution.
The reality of shelter euthanasia is one we wish we didn’t have to face, but honesty and transparency are key to building a future where every healthy and treatable pet has a chance. At LifeLine, we continue to fight for that future, even when the path forward is incredibly difficult. Our team remains committed to treating each pet with dignity, and to involving our community in creating a more humane and sustainable shelter system.
MAKE A LIFESAVING IMPACT
Visit our At Risk Pets pages or follow us on social media to learn how you can help save lives every single week.
