When Janelle Dixon started working in animal welfare in 1991, the landscape was vastly different than it is today. There were several mid-sized humane societies in the Twin Cities all competing for the same resources, and euthanasia was a common practice in order to conserve space in shelters. Animal Humane Society (AHS) was not yet a large, nationally recognized organization—in fact, this wouldn’t happen until over a decade (and two mergers) later, under Dixon’s leadership.
After spending some time working in Silicon Valley, Dixon moved back to the Midwest to pursue a career in non-profits, and was particularly interested in working with animals. “I grew up with animals, had dogs and cats and rabbits my whole life,” she says. She started as a volunteer coordinator and education program coordinator for the Humane Society of Ramsey County before working her way up to executive director.
Courtesy of Animal Humane Society
In 2000, Dixon facilitated the first merger of animal welfare organizations in the United States—the Humane Society of Ramsey County merged with the St. Croix Animal Shelter in Woodbury to become the Humane Society for Companion Animals. In 2007, this organization merged with two others and began operating under the AHS name, and Dixon took on the roles of President and CEO.
After working in animal welfare for 33 years, Dixon will be retiring at the end of December. Recently, we chatted with Dixon about the many milestones reached during her career and what she’s looking forward to in this next phase of life.
What was your goal coming into this position? And do you feel as though it’s been achieved?
You know, I would love to say I had this big, ambitious goal back in 1991. But I think more broadly, I wanted the work I did on a daily basis to do something good for community. I’ve more than achieved that. Just being in my role for a few years, I could see that in this particular area, it could have a huge impact. The numbers of animals that are spayed and neutered now is hugely different, I mean, that wasn’t the norm. All animals get spayed prior to adoption, and just changing the equation of what happens to an animal when it came into the shelter. When I started in 1991, if kittens were not adopted within five days, they got euthanized… now, if we have kittens, there’s people waiting outside the front door to come in and adopt them.
Hundreds of thousands of animals have been adopted through the organization that I’ve had the good fortune to be apart of. And I think hundreds of thousands of more lives have been saved because of different programs, in particular because of effective spay/neuter in our community and humane investigations, those kinds of things. There’s been a lot that has changed in our ability to get some better laws in place that can have a positive impact on the welfare of animals.
At the beginning of your career, what was the general attitude towards animal welfare? How have you seen it change over the last several decades?
That has changed dramatically. When I started in 1991, animals in shelter were really kinda looked at as damaged goods. People were reluctant to adopt. They thought if they were in the shelter, they had some reason why they were there, whether that be sick or just not well behaved. Now, it’s completely different. It’s a badge of honor to have a rescue pet. People tell the story of the animal in their family and what its background was when they adopted it. So, just totally different.
The “Adopt, Don’t Shop” movement is so popular now. Did it exist anywhere at that time?
It wasn’t the same. The percentage of animals in people’s homes that came through adoption was significantly lower than it is right now. There was the concept of “adopt, don’t shop,” but for some reason, it wasn’t resonating in the way that it does now. Animals were a part of families before COVID happened, but I think that with COVID, a broader segment of the public came to see how much animals are a part of their family. If you ask people now, it’s like 85-90% of people say that their pet is a member of their family. The way I visualize the change for people is when I started, there were a lot of outdoor cats and dogs in dog houses. Then, animals moved into the house, they were on the sofa, and they were sleeping with us. And we’re at a place right now where they tell us where to sleep. It’s an evolution of what’s happened.
Under your leadership, surrender and euthanasia rates have both decreased, and animal placement rates have gone up. What factors went into making this possible? Was there a certain “aha!” moment that changed everything?
I wouldn’t say anybody knew exactly what could change. It was some trying this and trying that. For a long time, there was very little research and development that went into looking at how shelters function. That’s a big change that happened starting in the early 2000s, starting to look at how we do business differently. People hate to talk about what we do as a business, but it is, and we have to think about the best ways to implement protocols and procedures to benefit the animals.
There was a period of time where having a high length of stay was looked at as being positive, because you were keeping the animals, you were caring for them, you were giving them medications, and giving them a chance to get adopted. But really, it came to be that a low length of stay is the best thing. Not being in a shelter at all is the best thing, not because shelters are bad, but shelters aren’t meant to long-term house animals. So, we shifted to a goal of getting the quickest length of stay for an animal as possible. We spent probably 18 months in ’07 and ’08 doing a lot of belly gazing and wholesale re-tooling everything we did in shelter, and thinking about it from a completely different perspective.
The open admission philosophy kind of put the shelters at a disadvantage, because it was like an emergency room all the time. Anytime anybody needed something, they came in at that time, in that moment of need. And we then were not as prepared as we could be to do our best for that person and animal. When we put in an appointment system, it still allowed people to get the care they needed… but it helped us be able to talk to clients and ask them questions about their situation. It allowed us to better understand why those individuals needed help, and it many of those circumstances, we could offer them something other than surrender. Just that process helped us reduce our intake from about 32,000 to 23,000 in a period of like, 12 months. It was really fast, and it had an immediate impact on euthanasia reduction as well.
Courtesy of Animal Humane Society
What other milestones were reached during your time with the organization?
The two mergers were very significant. Opening our two veterinary medical centers… the next phase of what we did was working on keeping people and pets together, so really shifting from reactive to proactive. The medical centers really helped us address the needs that people have who have limited income and economic challenges. The clinics we have make vet care affordable for them to address that challenge and keep their pet in their family.
Looking back on your career, what are you most proud of?
I think three things. The merger in 2007 was kind of the breaking of the dam to be able to make substantive change in our community. It hadn’t been done. So, we did the first one, we did the second one, and now it’s common across the country, and we have supported other organizations in pursuing mergers in that time.
Second was our ability to say, we need to look at everything we’re doing, and we need to be open to acknowledging where we made mistakes, where our thinking needs to change, and shifting, so that we can have an impact. And a substantial impact—not a 1% or 2%, but a 20, 40, 50% change in a positive way. That was the second one, when we really re-tooled how we do the work.
The third one is really shifting to a proactive approach, looking outside the walls of shelters, and starting to serve a broader array of the community who need services.
Based on where we are now, how do you feel about the future of AHS and of animal welfare in our community?
I feel like there’s only opportunity ahead for what we can do. Animal welfare isn’t about just animals, it’s as much about people, because we as people are the ones that decide what happens to these animals, good or bad. So, we really needed to open our doors and work differently with the people in our community who have animals. And that’s another huge change that opens up your opportunity for what we can do. Partnering community has looked one way, and it’s going to look a different way in the future.
What are you most looking forward to in your retirement? And what furry friends will you be spending it with?
I have four dogs, so I still have plenty of animals in my life. I have been trying to be intentional in my transition, and I have always done my work in Minnesota, and I’ve always lived in Wisconsin. I’m trying to do some volunteer work that might have a little bit more direct impact on my local community, and getting involved in some other non-profit work, and traveling.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story inaccurately quoted Dixon as saying the organization spent 18 months in ’07 and ’08 doing a lot of “delegating and wholesale re-tooling. The correct quote is “belly gazing and wholesale re-tooling.”
