An estimated one million pets will be dying in shelters this year because they haven’t been adopted—or weren’t kept out of the shelter with safety net programs to support people and pets.
Meanwhile, in some parts of the country, there are not enough cats and dogs for the people who want to adopt them. See the issue?
There is a veterinarian shortage, exacerbated by more people bringing pets into their homes during the pandemic. Vet prices are going up to meet the increased demand. This is leaving more and more people and pets behind.
Underfunded government shelters can’t compete at all. Most are funded at just .2% of city and county budgets. That period is in the right place: .2%. It’s far from enough, given the literal life and death stakes. In this time that veterinary costs are rising, it means—among other things—that pets in shelters are not receiving enough medical care, and sometimes no care at all, which leads to more unnecessary death.
These are among the problems that pets, and people, need the brightest minds to solve.
Dr. Jefferson recently spoke with Triple Pundit about how companies and individuals can help end pet homelessness. Read the interview here!
We need tech innovators, entrepreneurs, and pet lovers looking to make a huge impact.
These are not quick or easy projects. These are real global issues that, if solved, will mean a completely new world for pets and the people who love them.
Here are some of the areas where we need your energy and expertise:
Tech to connect more people to pets in shelters, especially to help people adopt from shelters in another city or state. This is harder than it sounds—but we know with the right minds at work, excellent products and apps can do this critical job.
Tech for shelter resident flow tracking, like the systems used to track hospital patient flow. That will allow shelters to better manage their populations, and develop and meet goals for animals’ survival.
An app that will let people use their cell phones to scan pets for microchips, instead of needing to use a specialized device often found only in vets’ offices, police stations, and animal shelters. This app would make it significantly easier to get lost pets back home.
Other tech solutions for reuniting lost pets with their families, that anyone of any income can use—such as a free crowdsourcing app that pinpoints a pet’s location.
Tech and law to solve for too many vet patients and not enough veterinarians.
Business analysts to predict foster and adoptive capacity in any community—then build software to better facilitate pets going into foster and adoptive homes. Especially in communities with more capacity than their local shelters need, this is another instance where tech can save lives by connecting people to pets outside of their local community.
Tech support to build industry report cards that help any community see how they are doing in terms of pet ownership and pet equity.
Legislative support to overturn laws that allow for adoptable and treatable pets to be euthanized in shelters.
Funding for research into treatment for common diseases like distemper that affect hundreds of thousands of pets every year, but are largely overlooked by drug manufacturers.
Developing affordable pet products to keep pets occupied while a foster or owner is at work.
Entrepreneurs to greatly expand the pool of affordable, pet-inclusive housing, and tech to connect people with rentals where they and their pets can live.
The majority of Americans own at least one pet. And if there is one thing we know, it’s that people LOVE their pets. In a recent national study, 98% of pet owners described their pets as family members who are as important as their human family members.
The government-funded animal shelters there to support pets and people, and to take in pets whose owners can no longer keep them, are drastically underfunded for the role they are there to serve.
In a world where pets are often the most important connection we have in the world, this system is needlessly cruel and inhumane to people and the pets they call family.
So how do we bring the awesomeness of the pet boom to all pets, since we have a shared belief that pets are family? That is where you come in. We know the problems. We need your help developing the tech, entrepreneurial, and legislative solutions that will keep people and pets together, and save pets’ lives.
This year our goal is to raise $160,000 to save the lives of 533 pets, and we can’t do it without you. Our supporters like you, make our No Kill mission possible. If you’re all in for lifesaving, here are all the tools you need to create a fundraiser for APA!:
2. Follow the instructions here to set up your individual fundraiser.
3. Share your fundraiser on social media! We’ve provided an array of graphics for you to use on any social media channel, including Instagram and Facebook stories.
Be a champion for our most vulnerable pets! The nonprofit with the most Fundraising Champions signed up to support their cause by March 3rd will win $2,500. By raising just $100, you give us the resources to vaccinate a litter of puppies AND kittens!
Don’t forget: thanks to a generous, anonymous donor, all gifts will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $25K until March 2nd at 5:59 p.m. — including gifts made to your individual fundraiser!
APA! runs on grassroots supporters. You make lifesaving possible. Amplify Austin is the perfect way to show just how much our community cares about the most vulnerable pets by rallying around APA!. We cannot wait to #AmplifyLifesaving together this year.
Bring pets inside. The best thing you can do for your pet is to bring them inside with you. While some breeds of dogs are more tolerant of cold weather than others, no pet should be left outside for long periods of time when it is below freezing (32ºF). You know your pet best, so be vigilant about watching for signs of their cold tolerance and limit outdoor activities accordingly.
Check your car for cats. Our feline friends like to hide from this weather in car engines and/or wheel wells, so thump the hood of your car a few times and check your wheels for stowaways before you start the engine and take off.
Provide a makeshift enclosure for outdoor animals. If you’ve noticed outdoor cats or other animals in your community suffering from the cold (shaking, curled up, etc.) and you are worried about them, create a makeshift shelter for them to stay warm in. A closed box or Rubbermaid bin with a cut out in the side, with towels or blankets, will help keep them safe in the frigid temperatures. Click here for example directions for cat shelters from Alley Cat Advocates and click here for more on what to do for dogs in the cold from Best Friends.
Or consider opening your garage slightly (and leaving a heating pad or heat lamp on) to let cats in from the cold.
Put a sweater on your pup. If you have a dog with a short coat, you can keep them a bit more insulated by putting a sweater or dog coat on them. Be sure the sweater and coat are completely dry for each outing, though, as damp or wet outerwear could actually make them chillier.
Check paws. After outdoor activity, check your pet’s paws for any signs of cracking on the paw pads, redness between toes, or bleeding. Wipe them down after each outing, too, to remove any salt, ice, or chemicals.
As this year comes to a close, I’m in awe of the lifesaving love that you have for dogs and cats who have no other chances to survive. You made sure that pets survived a winter storm. You made sure that Austin remained the safest city in the US for pets for the 10th year in a row. You got APA! one step closer to keeping shelter pets in the heart of Austin. Most importantly, this year, you made sure that more than 12,000 pets were saved from unnecessary death in shelters.
This year also marked a big shift, as a result of COVID, in the way that government shelters operate all over the country. For the first time in history, governments are banding together to address the root causes of crowded shelters and unnecessary euthanasia. Although we are not a government shelter, APA! is helping to lead the movement towards a more humane, for humans and pets, way of operating. The gift all animal lovers have wished for year after year finally feels possible- to eliminate the killing of shelter pets in America, forever.
Early in 2022, APA! leadership will be sharing our full 2021 impact numbers and highlights, but as you celebrate the holidays (if you celebrate them, and however you safely can this year) we want to wish you and your loved ones well and thank you for your continued role in saving animal lives.
Let’s take a look back on just a few of the milestones from 2021.
February: Winter Storm Uri & the start of transport
When Winter Storm Uri hit Texas in mid-February this year, it leftover four million people out of power and water for days. Temperatures got down to historically low single digits, and there was widespread loss of internet and cell phone reception.
In our work, lives are on the line every day. When disasters like Uri hit, it takes a village to ensure no companions’ lives are lost — no matter the circumstances. Our dedicated staff and volunteers went above and beyond to keep the animals on-site safe and warm, with some staff even sleeping at the shelter.
With the help of the community, we were able to triage burst pipes and regain power via donated generators. We relied on our community more than ever during this time, and our community relied on us. Our P.A.S.S. (Positive Alternatives to Shelter Surrender) program was in full force, saving community pets from the cold, providing food and water to pet owners in need and so much more.
As we gained control over our own crisis, the focus turned to animals who were losing their lives in shelters that did not have power as we madly transported more than 1,000 of them to other cities that could help. While Austin is the safest place for pets in the US, only a tiny fraction of the 150,000 animals losing their lives each year in Texas can get into Austin. The cold crisis got us to think of Austin as a pit stop in the journey from one very dangerous place in TX to a much less dangerous place in the north, even if that final destination is not at Austin’s level of No Kill success. In doing so, we started to open the door to making Texas No Kill. As of today, 2,228 lives have been saved in 2021 thanks to your support of the transport efforts in Texas.
April: Launched partnership with Austin FC
The first-of-its-kind honorary mascot partnership featured APA! dogs available for adoption as Austin FC honorary mascots at each Austin FC regular-season home match throughout the 2021 season. The best thing about this partnership is that the focus was on dogs who often are looked over in the shelter because they are too big or too old. Since the launch of the community-centered partnership, 15 Austin FC mascots have been adopted!
September: Austin 10th No Kill Anniversary
2021 marked Austin’s 10th year as a No Kill city. When APA! was founded in 1997 as an all-volunteer advocacy organization, Austin Animal Center’s save rate was 15 percent. In June 2008, APA! was reborn as a rescue organization and by 2011, the city reached a 90 percent live release rate, making Austin the largest No Kill city in the U.S.
Ten years later, our city now has a 97 percent live release rate. Together with you, the highest values of the people of Austin are represented in the way we care for our community’s pets.
October: Shelter Re-opening
By late October, after over a year of adopting APA pets exclusively online, we decided it was time to re-open our doors — safely. With masking and other safety measures in place, our shelter is now open Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Seeing our community members in person after all this time has been one of the highlights of the year.
November: City Resolution Passes
We pulled off another season of successful lifesaving despite the challenges with our Town Lake facility and restrictions within our agreement with the city. This November though, we achieved a major milestone in working towards a years-long overdue solution. Our agreement, since it had not been updated in over 10 years, did not allow us to fulfill our organization’s mission. We were restricted by the locations in which we could help surrounding shelters while keeping Austin No Kill. And we were restricted to an arbitrary number of animals that we must pull from Austin Animal Center, which has the largest municipal budget in the country, even if it meant we were duplicating their work.
Without a new agreement, our home in the heart of the city and our bold vision for the future of animal welfare was in jeopardy. On November 4th, City Council voted to allow us to take in animals from anywhere and remain at home in our current location. We still have to finalize an official lease agreement, which should reflect the value of the land use in terms of donated dollars we spend to adopt out animals in their charge. But we are thrilled that one of the two major roadblocks to a successful legal partnership is now out of the way. It would NOT have happened without you raising your voice and telling the council that saving our four-legged, and sometimes three-legged, family members’ lives, responsibly, matters to you.
Today
We are proud of the progress we’ve made on our new strategic plan we announced last year. We’ve completed and are implementing a variety of programs to be a sustainable organization and to invest in our people. We’ve also opened our Human Animal Support Services (HASS) project so any organization can be a partner and, in doing so, exponentially grown the work underway to change the way government shelters operate- by shifting the focus from just animals to families- both human and nonhuman. Today we have 104 HASS partner organizations. Here at home in Austin, we’re continuing to find better ways to save the lives that we encounter in need, no matter what challenge or trauma they have to overcome.
As we say goodbye to 2021 and hello to 2022, we’re nearing 100,000 intakes of animals since 2008. That’s nearly 100,000 that would’ve been killed for behavior quirks, medical issues or even just a lack of space at partnering shelters. Together with you, APA! continues to be the safety net for pets who have nowhere else to turn.
There is a lot that can be said for this time of year!
The holiday season is a time filled with love and joy, friends and family, busy calendars full of festive get-togethers, and cozy evenings at home wrapped in blankets. And at Austin Pets Alive! this is the busiest time of the year for our fundraising which is why we’re so grateful for Subaru’s Share The Love event!
This holiday season marks Subaru’s 14th Share the Love event and since 2015 Austin Subaru has selected APA! as their hometown charity, raising more than $300,000 over the years to support our lifesaving mission!
Share the Love takes place from November 18 – January 3rd. Hometown charities receive $250 for any new or leased vehicle sold during this time! And Austin Subaru adds some additional donations as well, such as donating $5 for every vehicle serviced during the Share the Love period!
This fundraiser goes a long way for our organization. To name just a few things that we can accomplish with Austin Subaru’s Share the Love support:
$1,000 — Purchases a new IV pump to keep puppies hydrated and alive as they fight Parvovirus.
$500 — Supports maintenance and repair of current IV pumps.
$225 — Provides immune-boosting IV Vitamin C for three puppies.
$100 — Provides intake vaccinations, dewormers, and spay/neuter for one puppy.
Each year, APA! brings more animals into our care, who otherwise, wouldn’t have had a chance at life. The support we receive from community partners like Austin Subaru makes all the difference to help the animals most at risk.
Pets like Legacy can find their loving homes because of community partner fundraising like Austin Subaru’s Share the Love event! Legacy who was actually named for Austin Subaru came into our care in early 2021. He’s worked with our behavior team to learn skills that will help him find a home that fits his personality and that can offer him the continued support he needs.
Join us in thanking our long-time and loyal supporters, Austin Subaru, for their hard work, generosity, and dedication to serving our community well!
Together with you, we have the opportunity to share so many stories here at APA!.
Your love of the pets with the greatest needs inspires us to continue saving lives every single day. Today, we wanted to share one of YOUR stories.
Alyson and her partner visited APA! just two weeks after moving to Austin. “I was insistent on getting an adult or senior cat,” said Alyson. “At the time, that meant between ages five and 10, a cat that was calm and liked cuddles as much as me. Those were the parameters I relayed to the APA! worker, who immediately directed me towards Roscoe.”
“I sat on the bench in the group cage. Roscoe was almost invisible in the back corner of the only cubby. After knowing Roscoe, I realized it was because of his missing claws, he felt extremely vulnerable with other cats. But I sat next to the entrance and began to softly stroke his cheek. He crawled out slowly, rested half of his 16-lb self on my leg, and lightly purred. It was quiet and comforting; it was what I wanted. I don’t remember how many cats I met that day, but I remember knowing that he was mine.”
“Roscoe beyond everything was simply the ideal companion. We bought him a backpack, in which we would take him on trail rides and harnessed walks through the summer heat. We enjoyed watching him explore the cypress roots and the waterfronts.”
“I will never know whether it was the wisdom of age or his personality that made him such an emotive companion. We had bright days, cuddles on the couch, and danced in the kitchen. But he also held space for us in times of darkness. His patience lasted for a time when I stopped going to work. He slept on my arm as I scrolled through the devastating news. He fell asleep next to me when my fiancé went home to Slovenia, and Roscoe and I were left alone in that little apartment, to fend for ourselves in times of fear and death. Even though the emptiness of that house was harrowing, his afternoon cries for playtime, and evening snores brought me a sense of steadiness and purpose. He reminded me every day that there was a reason to stay alive and to keep moving through the routines.”
“Roscoe loved me unconditionally.Through the sleepless nights of nothingness, through the complete dismantlement of our home; through the angry phone calls and my stress pacing as I quit my job”
“To his last days, he never wanted to be apart from us. Even when he felt tired, sick, and scared, he never hid. Until his last heartbeats, I never doubted that he loved me. And as hard as we fought to save him, he fought equally hard to keep going. The last thing I said to him was, “thank you,” for his companionship, strength, and effortless love that he gave me in the two years of chaos, excitement, and change. I told him he could let go. We would be okay. I would be okay.”
“I chose to donate to Austin Pets Alive! as a thank you for giving me the gift of friendship and purpose. In the days following his passing, I was looking for ways to memorialize lost pets. One of the first recommendations was donating to an organization in their honor, and making even a small donation to his previous caretakers was the first thing I knew I had to do. Roscoe was my dearest friend, and I am grateful for the two and a half years that I spent with him. I have never forgotten where he came from and Austin Pets Alive! was always featured in the story I would retell to anyone who would listen.”
“I was sometimes questioned about my decision to adopt an elderly cat. But it was a decision I never once regretted. I know there are more animals like him in your care, and I want them to know that I love them, too.”
We’ve always known that pets are at greater risk in Texas than in other states.
Due to the climate causing more breedings and a lack of resources in rural parts of the state, shelters are always facing an influx of pets that need homes. It wasn’t until a storm rocked everyone’s worlds in Texas that we’d find a solution on how to help save these deserving lives.
The idea was born out of Winter Storm Uri. Pets needed to get out of Texas — fast. Their lives were at risk and the clock was ticking. It was then that APA! – with its national outreach arm American Pets Alive! – set out on a mission to get 1,000 pets out of Texas into warm homes safely, and that we did.
In a matter of just four weeks, we hit our goal with our 1,000th pet being an adorable cat named Charlie. Charlie traveled all the way from Laredo, TX to KC Pet Project in Kansas. His journey up north was made special by having a first-class seat in a private plane flown by our volunteer pilot friend, David Nelson. Once he landed at KC Pet Project, it was only a matter of days until he found his forever home. Read how he found his family once he landed in KC.
The success of this mission opened the door for a new idea. Why would we stop at just 1,000 lives when we could continue to save pets from all over Texas who are facing death? APA! could act as a pit stop for these pets while they await the transportation that would take them to various states across the country. And so, the APA! Hub Transport Program was born.
Our transport team connects with shelters in Texas that are facing a lack of resources and space which often lead to the unwanted decision to euthanize their animals. Now we’re able to provide them with an alternative. Northern shelters often face the opposite problem. Due to the weather, in the winter months, many shelters have rows and rows of empty kennels with lines of people waiting to adopt. There’s no reason animals should die in the south when there are people waiting to adopt a shelter pet in the north.
“The APA! Hub Transport Program embodies the true spirit of Austin Pets Alive, through innovation, resourcefulness and the constant dedication to lifesaving,” says Clare Callison Maddie’s® National Director of Pet Supply & Demand. “Through this program, we are able to bring our hard-working Texas shelter partners into the national pipeline of support. It means so much that we are not only saving the lives of cats and dogs in Texas shelters, but we are helping to connect adopters to the love of a shelter pet, no matter where they live in the country!”
All the faces you see here are animals that were saved thanks to your support of our transport programs. Whether it was by bus, plane, train, or car, these lives found their second chance in loving homes all across the United States. They were welcomed with open arms as people lined up to bring them home.
At Austin Pets Alive!, we never hesitate to treat any companion animal that trots, limps, or must be carried through our doors.
Because of your generous support, we have been able to save nearly 100,000 lives in the last 10 years. One of those lives is Sapphire. We see tragic cases every single day, and Sapphire is no exception.
Living as a stray, Sapphire was struck by a car. A bystander alerted the city and she was brought to the city shelter, Austin Animal Center. She was bleeding, writhing in pain from nerve damage and bruised ribs — and pregnant. But when the city asked us to take over, our clinic staff did the ultrasound and made the heartbreaking discovery of no fetal heartbeats.
Determined to save Sapphire, our clinic gave her pain medication and she was stable. Unfortunately, her front left leg likely won’t heal with the nerve damage so it will have to be amputated in the coming weeks.
At most shelters, dogs with injuries like Sapphire’s would immediately be euthanized but together with you, we believe all pets deserve a chance to recover and live long healthy lives.
You can support pets like Sapphire every single day by giving today.With every gift matched up to $100K until December 31st, your gift today has TWICE the impact for pets in need.
“When Sapphire came to us, she was in a lot of pain. Walking to the end of the corner and back was a big deal for her,” said her foster Anne.
Before moving to America, Anne heard of Austin’s No Kill status and knew she needed to foster. She began fostering in January 2019 and adopted her “foster fail,” Luna.
“Nothing deters me,” said Anne. “It’s just the right thing to do. I don’t have a lot of people here because of the pandemic, all of my family is overseas. This can be my adoptive family right here. I mean, who doesn’t fall in love with that face?”
Because of animal lovers like Anne, we know that fostering is the future of APA!. The more pets we can get into homes, the more critical cases we can treat on campus. Together with you, we can strive towards a future where we save more pets than ever. Will you consider making a gift to help further APA!’s future?
Today, Sapphire is all play! You would never guess this gem has nerve damage. Currently Sapphire is on a special surgery list for amputation. Regardless of whether Sapphire has three legs or four, we are determined to give her the best life possible. Until then, she’ll be hanging with her foster mom Anne and foster sister Luna.
“Her spirit never falters,” Anne said. “I just hope she finds a really good family who’s going to love her unconditionally.”
As we enter into this season of giving, your active support allows us to say “yes” to every pet that needs us. With so many companion animals in need, your gift today instantly affects thousands of pets nationwide. Together with you, we can end needless euthanasia across our state and our country.
It was a day like any other when a woman came into a local pet supply store and started talking to the staff.
She was crippled with worry about a little kitten in her neighborhood that was the last one left from a litter of outdoor cats. You see, this kitten wasn’t like the others. He was severely malnourished and paralyzed in his lower half, unable to control his bladder and bowels, and left to fend for himself.
The staff member went home to her girlfriend Cara, an avid animal rescuer, and told her the situation. They knew they needed to help because this life couldn’t help itself. So off they went to scoop up a little kitten they named Frankie. Cara wrote on the first day, “He can still move his legs but they are disfigured – we are hoping just from malnutrition and that they can be fixed. He had more fleas than I’ve ever seen on a kitten from all my years of animal rescue.”
When Frankie was examined, it was inconclusive as to what was causing his paralysis. What we do know is that Frankie was not born this way. His prior owner said, “One day he just seized up and never walked again.” Cara focused her energy on making Frankie stronger by making sure he was getting the nourishment and medicine he needed, fitting him for diapers for his incontinence, clearing him of his fleas, and building him a PVC cart so he can gain strength in his limbs. “He may never walk again but it won’t stop him from living a long, happy, healthy life with the right family.”
Cara got in contact with the Austin Pets Alive! P.A.S.S. (Positive Alternatives to Shelter Surrender) program to figure out how she could help without surrendering Frankie to a shelter. APA! gave her the tools she needed to care for him as she fostered him until adoption.
Frankie fit right in with Cara’s clan, particularly loving cuddling up to her foster sibling dogs.
Three weeks ago Cara wrote, “The perfect home for Frankie is out there, and what a lucky family they’ll be. We just have to find them,” and that she did. After 62 days, we’re thrilled to report he’s found the family to love him unconditionally, differently-abled legs and all.
When animals are paralyzed, they often are incontinent. Historically, incontinent cats were euthanized immediately at the shelter with the belief that no one would want them. We’ve proved time and time again that’s not true. “APA! has adopted out 13 incontinent kitties so far this year. Many of these cats went to first-time incontinent cat adopters”, says Allie Wassel, our Cat Matchmaker Team Lead. “Thanks to dedication from our fosters, marketing, and clinic team, we are continuing to educate the public about how manageable and adoptable these cats are!”
Your gift this Giving Tuesday helps save lives like Frankie’s. With all gifts doubled, up to $100k, until December 31st, you can have double the impact on pets like Frankie. At seven weeks old he was left alone, immobile, and diminishing day by day. But together with you, and advocates like Cara, these pets get the chance to find their people, who will love them unconditionally. Give the gift of hope this holiday season and donate today.
Extremely underweight and sick, Alvie was found on the front porch of an abandoned home.
This two-year-old boy has a chronic GI disease causing emaciation and needs intense treatment. He’s currently being treated in our clinic where we can monitor his progress. Throughout everything he’s endured, he’s never lost his sweet nature. Always wagging his tail and offering licks when you come to see him. Animals prove time and time again that they will not give up hope. We promise to never give up hope either. With your support, Alvie and pets like him will continue to get the care they need.
Your donation today has double the impact thanks to a group of generous donors who are matching every gift between now and December 31, up to $100K! Don’t wait to double your impact for pets like Alvie!
“I can’t say for sure honestly if he’s going to be okay,” said APA! veterinarian Dr. Ratnayaka. Alvie is on about 12 different medications for GI comfort, antifungal treatment, and antibiotics. We just received test results that confirm Alvie has pythiosis. Pythiosis is a water-borne infection that causes extreme weight loss, diarrhea, and vomiting. With every single one of his bones poking through his skin, we’re happy to at least have some answers to what’s causing this so that we can move forward with treatment.
Austin FC approached Austin Pets Alive! in 2020 with an innovative partnership opportunity.
For the first time, an MLS team would feature adoptable shelter dogs as the Honorary Mascots for home matches. This unique opportunity showcases the shared core values of Austin FC and Austin Pets Alive! and we are excited to announce that fifteen Austin FC Honorary Mascots were adopted and will no longer be sleeping in kennels at the shelter.
Geraldine, Oso, Marmalade, Candy, Heidi, Missy, Corn, Peanut, Leon, Sunshine, Black Canary, Rey, Woody, Front Porch, and Minnie Winnie will spend the rest of their lives in warm, loving homes with their forever families. From all of us at Austin Pets Alive!, to Austin FC and all the fans, thank you for adopting, fostering, volunteering, and donating. We look forward to introducing you to the 2022 Austin FC Honorary Mascots!
At 4 a.m. on Sunday, our transport team loaded 41 dogs on a plane to safety.
These pets came from nine overcrowded, under-resourced Texas animal shelters where they faced death. Caramel, Roux, Penn, Crimson, and 37 other dogs were flown to shelters in Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, to be adopted into loving homes.
Thank you to KVUE for sharing the story and spreading awareness about how our rescue transport saves lives!
Our Town Lake Animal Center campus is a connection hub, where we give medical exams to the pets before they are transported to their new homes. (We gave them some sweet kisses and belly rubs, too.)
American Pets Alive! is the nationwide educational and outreach program of Austin Pets Alive!
APA! is a leader in No Kill sheltering in Austin—America’s largest No Kill city—helping under-resourced animal shelters in our home state of Texas give pets a chance at the life they deserve through rescue transports, lifesaving programs, assisting with medical crises, and so much more.
AmPA! brings these innovative programs designed to save the most at-risk homeless companion animals to the country as a whole. These are programs we have been innovating, growing, implementing, and sharing for over a decade.
Our work in Austin directly saves lives here and across the country, and serves as a model and inspiration for establishing and sustaining a No Kill community.
Rescue transport and crisis response are critical ways we do this work. Our innovative approach to transport is a lifesaving solution to move at-risk animals to areas with higher adoption demand.
“We have been working hard to help Texas shelters improve existing lifesaving programming and launch new initiatives. However, many of these shelters are not in a position to improve their current operations when every kennel is full and they are struggling to get through each day,” said Clare Callison, American Pets Alive!, Maddie’s® Director of National Pet Supply and Demand.
“By being able to connect these Texas shelters into the national pipeline of transport support, we are able to save lives, open more kennels, and start building lasting program support.”
Thanks to this rescue mission, 41 dogs now have a second chance at life, in their new homes. What we do here in Austin, saves lives across the nation.
After a year and a half of cancelled events and celebrations, APA! opened our doors once again for Clear the Shelters. During this national adoption event, 186 pets were adopted from our shelter! That’s 186 newly formed families complete with pets that didn’t stand a chance anywhere else.
When you join our monthly giving program, you invest in the long term stability of APA! which allows us to continue triaging and training for the most tailwags possible.Your monthly gift allows our teams to work around the clock to get as many available animals into homes so we can care for the next wave of companions in crisis.
One of those newly adopted pets is Pirate. Pirate came into our care with painful sores and nerve damage on his front right paw. Pirate, appropriately named for what was to come, couldn’t walk properly on his front leg and it was clear he needed an amputation.
After a pit stop in Maddie’s® Cat Adoption Center: Treatment and Care for Ringworm Positive Cats where Pirate graduated with honors, he was ready to join the fun at Clear the Shelters. Enter his future adopter, Auden.
“I was looking forward to the Clear the Shelters event for weeks and there were a few cats I was interested in, but [Pirate] was my top choice,” Auden said. “After waiting in line, I got inside and asked if Pirate was available, and everyone’s head turned. [Someone] asked me, ‘You want Pirate?!’,” she said.
It turns out Pirate was looked over during the whole event while all five of his kennel mates were adopted before him. It was then that Auden found out about Pirate’s paw and his upcoming amputation surgery.
“I was a little nervous at first, I’ll admit, but he was such a sweetheart and I knew even though I didn’t have previous knowledge on what it took to care for him, I could learn,” she said.
Just last Tuesday, Pirate went into surgery to have his front right leg removed.
Pirate & Auden
“Once he was home and I saw him, it was very emotional. I definitely had some time wondering if I could really do this for him,” Auden said. “There were a lot of very strong feelings that first night, and I ended up falling asleep on the bathroom floor with him because I was so nervous.”
While Pirate’s love and companionship has changed Auden’s life, he’s impacted her other cat Anakin even more. At eight years old, Anakin was shy and anxious around strangers. But, through Pirate’s tenacity Anakin began trusting his new sibling and the world just a little more.
“When I saw Pirate [I was reminded of] this quote from a podcast I’ve loved since I was younger, Welcome to Night Vale,” Auden said. “I actually named him after the cat in that show, Khoshekh. That cat also has some special needs, and when discussing him, the protagonist states, ‘No pet is perfect, it becomes perfect when you learn to accept it for what it is.’ Some people in my life were doubtful about me adopting him due to his paw, but I think this really captured how I felt when I met Pirate. Despite the challenges he would come with, I haven’t had a second thought and have spent every moment so happy that we found each other.”
Pirate post-amputation
Thanks to our Constant Companions, pets like Pirate can find their buried treasure in a forever home. When you join our monthly giving program, you ensure APA! can continue matching humans and animals to find the ‘purrfect’ home. Will you become a Constant Companion today?
Thanks to the dedication of you and our fellow supporters, we can confirm that an item regarding Austin Pets Alive!’s resolution will be on the Austin City Council agenda on Thursday, November 4.
As soon as we have the draft resolution language to share, we will reach out to update you and ask you to take one more final action to help advocate on our behalf.
At stake are the details of how we will be required to operate far into the future:
the number and types of animals we pull from the Austin Animal Center to keep our work in alignment with our mission,
the ability to use any facility we operate, at our own cost, for animals from any location,
and how Austin’s No Kill achievement will be sustained by both Austin city staff and APA!.
History has trained us to know that this meeting and resolution will not just sail through and be easy. We need to count on you to rally alongside us to keep No Kill in the heart of Austin. Our work to save at risk pets is a direct reflection of our community values and we are endlessly grateful to each of you for advocating for our place in Austin.
While critical to our future in the heart of Austin, we would be remiss if we didn’t say that the enormous time and effort negotiating for this resolution competes with fundraising for our daily lifesaving work. While the city has a taxpayer-funded budget and thus does not need to fundraise, every single dollar we use for every single animal we save (even from Austin Animal Center) is fundraised. To make a gift to support our continued lifesaving, please click here.
There is one day left before we know whether the city council has taken action on our APA! Resolution by adding it to the next city council meeting agenda.
What keeps rising to the top of criticism of our resolution from council offices is that they don’t understand why Austin Pets Alive! should be allowed to help communities outside of the greater Austin metro area. They see and hear about animals having long lengths of stay at Austin Animal Center(AAC) and the kennels being overcrowded there. Some believe that Austin Pets Alive!’s primary function, in addition to keeping Austin a No Kill City, should be to relieve the pressure at Austin Animal Center for the city staff. Some also believe that Austin Pets Alive!’s practice of helping animals outside of Austin is actually causing the overcrowding at Austin Animal Center.
The problem with this line of thinking is that “relieving pressure” is not something the City of Austin compensates APA! to do nor is it in line with our mission. APA! has used the Town Lake Animal Center for the last 10 years to keep Austin No Kill by pulling animals from Austin Animal Center who will die if we don’t. The city council has awarded Austin Animal Center with enough funding to relieve their own pressure.
So then why is Austin Animal Center constantly crowded?
It’s because Austin city leadership has given little credence to research and data that clearly shows that Austin has, and has always had, more than enough adopters to take in every single animal at Austin Animal Center AND to adopt every single animal that gets help from APA!, Austin Humane Society and the hundreds of rescue groups who take in animals from across the state.
We believe that the reason that credence is not given is that it is much easier to say “there are not enough adopters,” which implies that increasing adoptions is outside the control of the shelter director and reinforces poor performance.
We believe it is incumbent on us as shelter professionals, and we include Austin Animal Center leadership in that, to look at data when making any decision. We thought, but now realize we might be wrong, that the city manager and the city council also used data to drive decisions. If AAC leadership, and city council members, did that, they would be able to say “I see a problem with too many animals living at AAC at one time” and then connect that to the thought of “what can I do to make this better”. We have said it before but it’s worth repeating: adoptions don’t just happen. They are the result of resources, time, and strategic planning to ensure that the animals housed at AAC are getting opportunities to meet people and to be seen.
To put it in perspective, over the last five years, the city has increased Austin Animal Center’s budget by $1M per year. Tellingly, every single category of programming has benefited from that increased funding EXCEPT “Pet Placement/ Pet Outcomes” which actually fell by 30% in budgeted monies. Why isn’t anyone in leadership, at any level, examining and correcting that instead of strongarming APA! into making up for it?
Austin Pets Alive! has never been interested in being the City of Austin’s “overflow” for a system that lacks oversight, lacks critical thinking, and continues to make poor decisions and we are standing by our mission to save lives.
As individual citizens and as a private nonprofit, we have asked and asked for the government animal shelter to be run well because it is critically important to Austin’s animals and to APA!. That has not worked. We hope this final attempt to wake up our city council will work and we, in partnership with the City of Austin, can finally focus on forward momentum. To keep the support strong through this final day of city council consideration, please keep emailing to express your support for the APA! resolution.
Even if you already have sent an email, we need to keep the message top of mind. Thank you!
Austin Pets Are in Crisis. Supporting Families Through Partnership Is the Answer. We must work together to keep pets with people and out of the shelter.
Here in Austin, 38,000 pets could be displaced by evictions in the coming months. Nationally, that number could be as high as eight million.
After speaking with American Pets Alive! and Human Animal Support Services project director Kristen Hassen, NBC shared this story about how the looming eviction crisis could impact overcrowded shelters by displacing the pets of families who lose their homes.
Austin Pets Alive!, the parent organization to AmPA! and AmPA!’s HASS project, is already seeing the effects of the financial strain so many families have faced during the pandemic. Our APA! Positive Alternatives to Shelter Surrender Facebook page is currently receiving around 1,000 requests for help each month, with countless owners faced with the possibility of having to give up their pets.
We help as many of these families as we can. But the situation for our community’s pet owners is growing increasingly dire. It will get much worse as more families are evicted.
APA! is currently working with the City of Austin to renegotiate our partnership agreement so we can focus even more of our efforts on innovation and progress to support families and shelters in crisis. We want to ensure Austin Pets Alive! and Austin Animal Center can, with our complementary roles, develop our partnership to protect our city’s animals and families.
We come to this partnership with deep experience. AmPA!’s Human Animal Support Services program leads nationwide efforts to develop and implement community-centered animal services programs to keep pets with people, and out of shelters.
What we have learned while bringing this model to hundreds of communities across the country, is this is never a solo effort. Success requires government shelters to partner with other organizations.
That means we and Austin Animal Center must work together, and be based together here in Austin, to ensure that the eviction crisis does not overwhelm AAC and lead to pets needlessly losing their homes, and even their lives.
For a decade now, Austin has been looked to as a model for how to save animals. We are the country’s largest no kill city, and this is largely thanks to the longstanding partnership between Austin Animal Center and Austin Pets Alive!
Other communities look to us for guidance, and inspiration. This is, as it should be, a source of pride for our residents.
Now we need that partnership to sustain and evolve, to meet the tremendous challenges we face together, today, as animal welfare organizations and as a city.
Thirty-eight thousand Austin pets are in danger of losing their homes to eviction, in the coming months. Working together, in our shared city, we can face this.
We are proud to be the leader in animal welfare innovation and now we need a true partnership with our city, so together we can keep Austin pets with their families.
“I adopted my first kitten, now an 8-year-old cat, at a PetSmart adoption event in June 2013.
I was struggling with depression and trying to push my way through grad school and Lancelot has been helping me with his affection from our union.”
“Fast forward a few more years and I once again turned toward kittens as a way to help me with my mental health. In 2018, I was struggling with another depressive spell but this time turned to volunteering with APA!. I started off in the ringworm cattery before figuring out how to volunteer in the neonatal nursery. I really wanted to focus on the nurturing of kittens to mirror self-care.”
For many of us, self-care and mental health came into focus during the Coronavirus Pandemic, and for us Texans, during Winter Storm Uri. When Winter Storm Uri hit Texas in mid-February this year, it leftover four million people out of power and water for days. Temperatures got down to historically low single digits, and there was widespread loss of internet and cell phone reception.
In our work, lives are on the line every day. When disasters like Uri hit, it takes a village to ensure no companions’ lives are lost — no matter the circumstances. Luckily, we have people like Kimberley on our side.
“I was on my second kitten of the year when Winter Storm Uri hit,” said Kimberley. “I had an adorable 7-week old orange kitten named Finn when I lost electricity.
For three days straight he spent the majority of the time in bed with me curled up next to my chest while I was under five blankets. My older cats were on top of the blankets surrounding us. No heating pad or warm gruel during this storm. I was totally iced in.”
“I went to my car a few times in an attempt to charge my phone and had the heat on to try to keep him warmer. Prior to my in-laws taking me and all four felines in where they had electricity, I did fear he was starting to fade on me.”
Neonates, kittens from birth to six weeks of age, are often bottle-fed every few hours and often kept on heating pads during normal temperatures. Caring for Finn during Winter Storm Uri quickly became a life-or-death situation.
To perk him up, Kimberley knew she had to make warm sugar water for him to drink. But with no electricity and no running water, this wasn’t going to be easy. Luckily, Kimberley saved some clean water prior to the boiling order and was able to make the concoction with room temperature water — though room temperature was about 26 degrees.
“It was terrifying trying to keep him warm and not suffocate him as he burrowed up against my chest, sometimes inside my jacket after coming out to eat or use the litter box,” said Kimberley. “He was a trooper though.”
Despite being without power for 48 hours and without water for 72 hours, our shelter remained operational. We mobilized to place 90 percent of our population in foster homes, and our fosters were more vital than ever. Nothing stopped our teams from saving lives and placing pets in forever homes.
“I didn’t even have a halfway charged phone prior to losing power and had spotty signals at best. Yet the adoption team still managed to send me adoption requests, despite the challenges we all faced in Austin. I recall replying to two potential adopters when I had maybe 5 percent battery and trying to set up future Zoom meet and greets.” said Kimberley. “In the end, Finn did go to one of those potential adopters.”
“It was a horrible situation, but I can assure you the off-site volunteers and all of us fosters were doing our best to keep the animals alive and continuing our darndest to further Austin’s goal of No Kill. We did our best to keep the animals alive with what little resources we had without electricity.”
“At this point, I’ve taken in 64 kittens in my four kitten seasons. Of the 21 I’ve had so far this season, 4 have been through the P.A.S.S. program. The majority of my kittens have had ringworm and I do my best to inform people that ringworm is not a reason to reject an otherwise healthy animal. I hope to continue saving kittens and adding joy to other people’s lives with my fosters.”
“I truly consider myself a social worker for both humans and cats.”
Without lifesavers and advocates like Kimberley, APA! companions may have been lost during the winter storm. We need you to join Kimberley to fight for No Kill to stay in Austin so pets like Finn and all of Kimberley’s kitties get the same chances as healthy pets by making a gift today.
With our No Kill future at risk more now than ever before, we need your help TWICE as much to keep Austin No Kill. Give today and double your impact for companions in need.
What’s your Winter Storm Uri story? Interact with our posts on social media TODAY for your last chance to be featured!
This week, we are going back through time to showcase the history of No Kill in Austin and our public-private partnership with the City of Austin.
1998-2001: From the beginning when local attorney Jim Collins created Austin Pets Alive!, it’s mission has been to promote and provide the resources, education and programs needed to eliminate the killing of companion animals in shelters. In order to meet that mission, APA! started as an advocacy organization dedicated to making program and policy changes at the city’s shelter. At this time, the city was euthanizing 85% of the 35,000 animals that entered the shelter on an annual basis. The goal was to make Austin a No Kill City by the year 2000. During this time, the founders coordinated an effective public awareness campaign which led to a doubling of the city shelter’s budget. Additionally, the kill rate was substantially reduced, daily open-adoption hours were introduced, and a volunteer program was created. Despite all of this, No Kill was not reached during this time.
Jim Collins created Austin Pets Alive! article, 1998
2008-2011: Still in line with the mission and reinvigorated with new leadership, APA! shifted its strategy to focus on more direct ways to impact the City of Austin shelter’s euthanasia rate, which by 2007 was at 55% with 25,000 animals entering the shelter on an annual basis. We were still an all volunteer organization with less than $10,000 in the bank and no facility, but that didn’t stop us from thinking big. In 2008, we pulled together as many like-minded people as we possibly could and carved out a business plan that would build the infrastructure to address the needs of the up to 14,000 animals who were dying each year at the city shelter.
2009
One of the first steps in this new strategy was to intervene in the euthanasia process. As is true today, animals came into the city shelter from many different places for various reasons. After pets were taken in, animals surrendered by their owners moved immediately either to the adoption portion of the shelter, to a rescue group (non APA!), or to a euthanasia list. Stray pets were held for three days before the decision was made to euthanize them or attempt to adopt or transfer them to rescue. Long term Austinites might remember when the Town Lake Animal Center (TLAC) shelter was segregated between animals lucky enough to have survived the last 3 days on the left and those who were too big, dark, scarred, sickly or badly behaved and destined to die on the right behind a locked gate. The public was not allowed to even look at the 75% of campus that was the non-adoption side.
2009
Each day, our team received a list of animals, ranging from 20-100 animals long, that were slated for euthanasia. We were given two hours to try to move those animals to safety by 7 p.m. or they would be dead by 11:30 a.m. the next day.
In those two hours, day after day, 365 days a year, our tough-as-nails volunteer team worked at lightning speed. They posted on Facebook and Craigslist, imploring the community to help by fostering for a short period of time. They texted people they knew that liked labs or poodles to try to find a spare bathroom anywhere to house a pet, who might loosely resemble that breed, until they could make it to an adoption event. Every day, they made an impact on that euthanasia list and cut it down by 10% or as much as 100%. Every week, we could add up each day’s progress to figure out the impact we were making. This eventually translated into a yearly impact metric.
As APA!’s strategy was to intervene in the deaths of the animals at the very last minute, the byproduct was the huge increase in public awareness that these very adoptable animals were dying. The awareness led to public outcry and city council action (very similar to what happened in 1999). That turned out to be an incredibly important part of the puzzle, impacting the euthanasia rate beyond even our direct euthanasia list intervention, and led to Austin becoming No Kill.
By the time our original license agreement to operate TLAC came around in 2011, the community had advocated heavily for change at the city of Austin shelter. The city council passed a 2010 No Kill Implementation Plan, recommended to them by the Austin Animal Advisory Commission after an intense year of public input and strategy sessions. That plan included, most importantly:
a mandate for the city shelter to reach a 90% live release rate
a moratorium on killing while any cages were empty (previously this practice left 50 or more kennels open each morning for “possible” intakes)
a directive for the city shelter to grow a foster program and behavior program
a directive to use Town Lake Animal Center (about to be vacated for the new location in East Austin) as an adoption center
an extra $1,000,000 to add to the city shelter budget to help implement these goals
2010
When the city shelter moved from TLAC to east Austin, we had to work tirelessly to gain the ability to use the old shelter. Council Members Martinez and Morrison worked with all parties involved to outline the requirements of that first agreement. Ultimately, APA! agreed to continue taking 3,000 animals from the euthanasia list at the city shelter annually, when the city’s intake was 19,000, the city’s budget was 7 million dollars and they were still euthanizing 2,000 of the pets, even with us pulling 3,000 to safety. The city of Austin and APA! still had a lot of lifesaving work to do to get Austin to No Kill.
March 11, 2010
2011-2019: A lot has changed in the world of animal sheltering and certainly in the City of Austin during the last decade. The city shelter gained an additional 10 million dollars in their budget and today has a budget of 17 million dollars for an average intake of 18,000. Many of those millions were injected into the city shelter’s medical program despite the fact that APA! had been, since 2011, pulling nearly 100% of the medically challenged animals. Even after millions of tax payer dollars went into medical care for city owned animals at Austin Animal Center (AAC), there were still 1,500+ animals with medical needs listed for euthanasia, down from 3,000+, because the medical practices that AAC employed were more like private practice in their expense and less like the triage APA! used to save lives at a low cost.
In fact, at that stage the animals that were still dying (meaning APA! didn’t have capacity to save them after they were listed on euthanasia list) were almost entirely large breed dogs with and without behavioral challenges. However, almost none of the new AAC funding was directed to help increase fostering or adoptions of those dogs. And almost none of the funding was directed to help pet owners keep their big dogs to prevent intake. There was a brief period of AAC leadership, Tawny Hammond, Lee Ann Shenefiel and Kristen Auerbach, that tried to put more resources into large dogs but they were met with resistance. Because of overall inadequate oversight of the very generous new funding directed by council to “make Austin No Kill”, there continued, and continues, to be a euthanasia list with large breed dogs and medical animals, and there continues to be struggles with large breed dog capacity at AAC. APA! continued to take the “leftover” animals who were listed for euthanasia even though no government funding came to APA! for the care of pets from the city shelter. As AAC management tried to overcome overcrowding, they leaned on APA! to take more and more non-euthanasia list large breed dogs.
2012
Even with all of these partnership issues, APA! started a behavior program directed at saving the dogs with challenging histories of trauma to prevent their euthanasia at AAC unless there was a severe, demonstrated public safety risk. As per our mission, we didn’t focus on trying to relieve space issues for AAC but of course tried to help.
2014
When AAC reached a 95% live release rate, and due to the continual turnover of leadership at AAC which left AAC vulnerable to moving backwards to killing, we focused on building institutional sustainability for No Kill in Austin. No Kill is still very much dependent on the city animal services director’s personal philosophy because there is very little throughout city government to institutionalize it.
Thanks to the ongoing work of Council Member Leslie Pool’s office, a new citywide ordinance to preserve a 95% minimum live release rate and an updated animal code went into effect. In addition, we documented memorandums of understanding (MOU)s to preserve internal practices between AAC and APA! that we hoped would cement No Kill practices in Austin. Austin’s No Kill status was further buoyed by the 2017 Economic Impact Study showing No Kill policy had brought $157M into Austin.
2019-2021: Since 2019, the city has maintained a continual live release rate at or above 95%, in accordance with the ordinance. With the largest budget, per capita and per animal, of any government animal shelter in the nation, AAC has received the financial support to achieve this level of lifesaving. Unfortunately, despite all of this progress, policy changes, and historically high budget, the city has shifted its expectation of maintaining capacity for non-euthanasia list animals to achieve No Kill to APA! with no oversight of existing taxpayer fund usage or financial investment in APA!. This is far outside the scope of the original licensing agreement, signed at a time when 2,000+ animals were still dying and the city’s budget was extremely inadequate for lifesaving. We are proud of our role in making Austin No Kill and advocating for appropriate AAC funding but we have no control or oversight of those funds as a completely private entity. Our fear of losing the use of TLAC has exacerbated that inability to advocate for change in the past.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in early 2020, every shelter in the country emptied their shelters, placing the vast majority of pets in foster homes. This gave the animal welfare industry time to think about the purpose and functions of animal shelters to begin with. APA! pivoted, once again, to focus on keeping human animal families together and launched the Human Animal Support Services (HASS) project. We started HASS because we believe that building the infrastructure to serve community pets and people could dramatically lower the number of pets needing to be institutionalized in the shelter. As APA! and our national arm, American Pets Alive!, worked to implement HASS in most major U.S. cities, we were met within our own city of Austin with some interest but no action to undertake truly solving for why so many animals enter Austin Animal Center every year.
Instead, we, at APA!, have been made painfully aware through multiple crises (the 2021 cold crisis when the city shelter shut down and deferred the public to APA! for help or during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic when the city shelter just stopped all support to community members who needed much more than a website to navigate options during the human crises they faced), that the city expects the public private partnership to continue, for the next 75 years, as simple, quiet overflow for all of the Austin Animal Center problems.
At the same time, the Austin Animal Center is under a high level of scrutiny by the Austin Animal Advisory Commission due to a memo sent by the Austin Animal Center director, claiming that killing of dogs with behavioral histories would need to begin in order to keep capacity at a manageable level, despite a historically low intake of animals. This is unacceptable and we hope the city will use the recommendations from the commission to make lasting change in how the center is managed.
Summer 2021: As of today, the world is rapidly evolving and other cities are passing Austin by as the most progressive for animal welfare. Disheartened by the city’s lack of interest in progressing beyond a No Kill number to build a truly humane community and compounded by the state, and now accepted future, of our facility, we have made the difficult decision to refuse to be the “overflow” for Austin Animal Center any longer or do the rest of the Austin Animal Center’s job for free. We need to go back to a relationship that preserves lifesaving but also drives progress and innovation. Tragically, we are forced to potentially vacate TLAC to gain this but in doing so, we hope Austin will regain its “top” status.
Today: We have let the city know that while we are committed to keeping Austin a No Kill City by taking in animals truly at risk of euthanasia, if there is to be any formal documented agreement with APA! to preserve No Kill status, we will not agree to serve as an overflow facility to animals who are not at risk of euthanasia. And we will not agree to limit the scope of our important and lifesaving work to make the entirety of Texas – and nation – No Kill. It’s still our hope, though now somewhat distant, to have an agreement with the city that allows TLAC to continue as a beacon of hope in this new phase of Austin’s animal history. It is clear that will only happen if the city council directs staff to make it happen.
Soon, we will need your help to advocate for these changes to our contract and to the overall No Kill sustainability plan for Austin. We can’t do this without our supporters now, just as we couldn’t have created this organization without you from the start. I hope this information helps you to understand why so much is happening at once regarding Austin’s No Kill status and why there are no simple decisions for everyone involved.
Thank you,
Ellen Jefferson, DVM President and CEO Austin Pets Alive!/American Pets Alive!
In 2017, the Austin City Council passed a resolution that APA! could stay on the Town Lake Animal Center (TLAC) property for three 25-year agreements (75 years!). City staff and APA! were directed to negotiate and execute an agreement over the next three years.
Since then, APA!, with the amazing help of our pro-bono attorneys at Drenner Group, and the City has been in intense negotiations, resulting in two emergency extensions to allow both sides more time to come to a consensus. This has proven very difficult and our exact future is unknown. We want to make sure that you, as a valued APA! partner, are being brought along more thoroughly as this unfolds and a final decision is reached in the months ahead. What is crucial for you to know today is that it is impossible for APA! to operate with the TLAC facility service agreement currently in place, and due to the state of our facility, we have no choice but to either renegotiate those terms or find a new facility. We want you to be aware of this as we continue to work with the City of Austin to determine our future in the months ahead.
I’m sure you are asking: why can’t you just keep your current terms? The top-line answer to that is that it’s complicated. The complications involve requirements around the parkland that TLAC sits upon, the campus buildings in various stages of disrepair, the City’s Lamar Beach Master Plan, operations at both Austin Animal Center and APA!, and our vision for the future of No Kill. It is too much to pack into one letter. In an effort to keep you informed but not overwhelmed, we will be sharing this information in pieces over the next few weeks. We welcome your questions and thoughts as you hear our plans unfold.
When we started APA!, our goal was to make Austin a sustainable, No Kill city. We envisioned a place where all pets would be truly safe from death and where euthanasia due to space and time limits would no longer exist. Now, more than a decade and nearly 100,000 lives saved later, we have succeeded in fulfilling that mission year-over-year, making Austin the safest place in America for lost and homeless pets, and spreading that territory into the rest of Texas. This will not change, no matter the outcome of our relationship with the City.
As we are sustained entirely on donations and rely heavily on fosters and volunteers, we could never have accomplished making, and keeping, Austin No Kill without your tireless support. Your ongoing investment has helped us transform Austin and show the world what it looks like when a community comes together to work towards one goal. Every dollar you’ve given, every hour you’ve spent volunteering, and every pet you’ve fostered or adopted have resulted in what has come to seem normal but is truly extraordinary.
Thank you,
Ellen Jefferson, DVM President and CEO Austin Pets Alive!/American Pets Alive!
You are likely well aware of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the emerging eviction crisis, which threatens to displace millions of Americans from their homes.
Evictions are on track to be the number one reason cats and dogs enter the public shelter in Austin. Based on our Pet Eviction Calculator, in Travis County alone a whopping 37,340 pets are at high risk of eviction.
If these evictions span the course of 60-90 days, as is expected, our shelters will be overwhelmed. The shelters are not able to absorb even a fraction of this number of displaced pets, without invoking mass euthanasia. We need your help to prevent the senseless loss of animals’ lives.
There are two actions we are asking of Austinites today:
Call and email the council members and the city manager to ensure that animal welfare leadership is at the table while solutions to mass evictions are being discussed. It is critical that our government, especially here in Austin, doesn’t forget how much pets mean to our residents. To keep human-animal families together, we must plan now. This means ensuring transitional housing is pet inclusive, identifying temporary boarding options at Austin Animal Center for people being evicted, and providing resources and support to pet owners to help them keep their beloved family members.
When you reach out, please say or write that we need real solutions for the whole family, including pets, and animal welfare leadership must play a key role in the city’s eviction response.
Get involved. If you want to help a pet owner facing eviction or other financial crisis, join our efforts on the Austin Pets Alive! Positive Alternatives to Shelter Surrender (P.A.S.S.) Facebook page. This page is set up to help pet owners who need help paying pet rent deposits or medical bills, who wish to rehome their pet without shelter surrender, and who need temporary safety net foster caregivers. We need good Samaritans to join as we prepare for many more people in need. Another way you can get involved is to stay tuned to your Nextdoor app and offer to help a neighbor in need—you can proactively put the message out or you can wait until someone posts about a need.
You may have heard Austin Pets Alive! championing the Human Animal Support Services (HASS) model that turns industry-facing, shelter-based Animal Services into outward-facing, community-centered Human Animal Support Services.
This fundamental reimagining of Animal Services addresses the root causes of animal shelter intake, in order to serve more pets in their communities and homes and to reduce the number of pets entering the shelter system. HASS partner shelters across the country are preparing for the eviction crisis by expanding community-based sheltering options, like temporary safety net fostering programs, right now. You can read more about HASS’s tools and resources for keeping families together through the eviction crisis here.
We have two choices in the face of this catastrophic looming eviction crisis: let it happen and bemoan the senseless waste of pet life, or do something about it. I hope you will join APA! and do something about it, starting today.
