{"id":60883,"date":"2026-01-11T18:43:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=60883"},"modified":"2026-01-11T18:43:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T23:43:49","slug":"here-are-the-2025-stats-for-polk-county-animal-control-these-figures-come-directly-from-them-as-it-is-public-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/01\/11\/here-are-the-2025-stats-for-polk-county-animal-control-these-figures-come-directly-from-them-as-it-is-public-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Here are the 2025 stats for Polk County Animal Control. These figures come directly from them, as it is public record."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Street Cat Project of Polk County<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the 2025 stats for Polk County Animal Control. These figures come directly from them, as it is public record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024 and 2025 intake and outcome numbers are almost identical. This means there has been no progress on lessening intake and keeping animals in homes or finding their owners.
14588 – 2024
14526 – 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, 1,742 dogs, 3,552 cats, and 187 other animals were killed
In 2025, 1,318 dogs, 3,487 cats, and 326 other animals were killed.
An improvement year over year of 424 dogs and 65 cats lives saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

129 more dogs were returned in 2025 over 2024, and that is not even accurate because of July they stopped categorizing returns separately, I assume they are lumped into Owner surrenders. This, as a manager, is concerning as it doesn’t give you a return to kennel rate (meaning how many ineffective placements at adoption). High return to kennel rates are red flags that the staff isn’t making correct placements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They confiscated 128 more cats in 2025 than in 2024, and strangely the exact same number of dogs year over year<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Euthanasia Requested by Owner” is a hot-button issue. Most high kill shelters have owners in desperate need to sign a paper that says essentially “if you sign over the pet, you sign off on us euthanizing”. Shelters should not be places where people bring their sick or old animals to be euthanized, nor should they offer that service. They should be a resource to refer to vets in the area that will help the owner to let the animal go. When you get EVERYONE who surrenders to sign a form saying you can euthanize, you basically can kill the animal as soon as they walk out of the building. This “euthanasia requested by owner” is a way to give the shelter an easy way out to kill. Again, Shelters should not be places people go to euthanize their animal. If you were truly only euthanizing those that the owner requested, then the intake number and the outcome number should be identical each year. They are not, but at least the intake number is a few higher than the outcome number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They took in as stray 782 more cats in 2025 than in 2024 and 348 less dogs. Coincidence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adopted and transferred were lumped together in 2024 and the first 6 months of 2025. So if we add those categories together for the year totals, in 2024, 3,229 cats and 3,000 dogs were left alive via adoption or transfer. In 2025, 4,367 cats and 2,846 dogs left alive via adoption or transfer. The cat increase is due to the cat rescues that are now pulling cats and kittens every week, saving lives. Great job cat rescues!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, 1,319 dogs and 360 cats were reunited with their owners
In 2025, 1,183 dogs and only 188 cats were reunited with their owners. Again, Coincidence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disposal requested for dead animals should be the same for intake and outcome. They are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIVE RELEASE RATE DID INCREASE FROM 2024-2025 – 6% FOR DOGS AND 3% FOR CATS. AS DISMAL AS THESE STATS ARE, WE WILL TAKE ANY SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PCAC did not report any TNRs as required in Florida Statute 823.15<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistics matter. Accountability matters. Categories and correct allocation matter. Transparency matters. Please join us in our quest for these things that matter from our taxpayer funded shelter. This is our tax dollars at work. Demand change from our elected officials.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Street Cat Project of Polk County Here are the 2025 stats for Polk County Animal Control. These figures come directly from them, as it is public record. 2024 and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDFcLzYxNDc0OTM5M18xMjIwMDk2NzkwMjMyMzU0XzE4NTI5ODg0MTQ1NDU5NDExOTlfbi53ZWJwP2ZpdD04MTklMkMxMDI0JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiSGVyZSBhcmUgdGhlIDIwMjUgc3RhdHMgZm9yIFBvbGsgQ291bnR5IEFuaW1hbCBDb250cm9sLiBUaGVzZSBmaWd1cmVzIGNvbWUgZGlyZWN0bHkgZnJvbSB0aGVtLCBhcyBpdCBpcyBwdWJsaWMgcmVjb3JkLiIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.aRTNd8kwC2m88uMZMu_qZwkEFsgigz8Fd3JLOAUn4pQMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":60884,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/614749393_1220096790232354_1852988414545941199_n.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13159,13158],"class_list":["post-60883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-as-it-is-public-record","tag-here-are-the-2025-stats-for-polk-county-animal-control-these-figures-come-directly-from-them"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60885,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60883\/revisions\/60885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}