---
title: "Animal Shelter Outcomes"
description: "What happens to dogs and cats at animal shelters — adoption, return-to-owner, and live-release rates from open shelter data across 2 shelters."
url: https://www.pawsitivid.com/shelter-data
---

# Animal Shelter Outcomes

This collection covers shelter outcome data from Austin Animal Center and Sonoma County Animal Services, published as open government data. Together, the 2 datasets record 194,537 dog and cat outcome records. 97.6% of dogs leave Austin Animal Center alive, across 94,505 outcome records.

## At a glance

- **194,537** outcome records analyzed
- **2** shelters covered

## Austin Animal Center leads dog live-release at 97.7%

Austin Animal Center recorded a 97.7% dog live-release rate in its most recent full year, 13.9 points ahead of Sonoma County Animal Services at 83.8%.

## Shelter reports

- [Austin Animal Center](https://www.pawsitivid.com/shelter-data/us/austin) — 163,904 outcome records. 97.6% of dogs leave alive, across 94,505 outcome records.
- [Sonoma County Animal Services](https://www.pawsitivid.com/shelter-data/us/sonoma) — 30,633 outcome records. 87.7% of dogs leave alive, across 19,015 outcome records.

## Sources & methodology

- Austin Animal Center: [Austin Animal Center Outcomes](https://data.austintexas.gov/Health-and-Community-Services/Austin-Animal-Center-Outcomes/9t4d-g238) — City of Austin, Public domain (City of Austin open data).
- Sonoma County Animal Services: [Sonoma County Animal Shelter Intake and Outcome](https://data.sonomacounty.ca.gov/Government/Animal-Shelter-Intake-and-Outcome/924a-vesw) — County of Sonoma, Open data (license not specified by publisher).

## For municipalities and shelters

Shelter data this clean is what the [PawsitivID platform](https://www.pawsitivid.com/platform) produces for municipalities and shelters.

## Common questions

**Which shelter has the highest live-release rate?**

Austin Animal Center recorded a 97.7% dog live-release rate in its most recent full year, 13.9 points ahead of Sonoma County Animal Services at 83.8%.

**What is a live-release rate?**

It is the share of animals that leave a shelter alive — through adoption, return to owner, or transfer — out of outcomes excluding deaths in care. Every report in this collection states the live-release rate for dogs and cats separately.

**Where does this shelter data come from?**

Each report is aggregated from that shelter's own open data, published by its city or county government. Only anonymous totals are shown — no individual animal records.

**How many shelters are covered in this collection?**

This collection currently covers 2 shelters: Austin Animal Center, Sonoma County Animal Services.