From El Paso and Ciudad Juarez to San Diego and Tijuana, migrants were massing Thursday along some sections of the U.S.-Mexico border in a last attempt to cross into the United States in the hours before the pandemic-era health rule known as Title 42 ends.
Some migrants who have traveled from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Central America fear that it could be harder for them to stay on U.S. soil once the restrictions are lifted.
Here are some of the scenes playing out along the 1,950-mile (3,140-kilometer) international boundary:
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María José Durán, a 24-year-old student from Venezuela, was on the verge of tears as she sat on a riverbank in Matamoros, Mexico.
Mexican immigration officials were trying to move migrants to an improvised camp and away from a spot where they could wade across the Rio Grande.
Durán said she dropped out of college when her parents could no longer afford it and set out for the U.S. with a group of friends and relatives. They crossed the treacherous Darien Gap dividing Colombia and Panama and then a half-dozen more countries before arriving at the U.S. border.
“I don’t know what to think now, having made such a difficult journey to now find ourselves with this,” she said, motioning toward the opposite shore where at least a dozen Texas state troopers with rifles stood behind concertina wire.
From the Mexico side, Texas National Guard members could be seen reinforcing a stretch of razor wire to keep migrants out.
Later, Durán could be seen walking along the levee with other migrants who had crossed the Rio Grande and passed the barbed wire.
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Hundreds of migrants lined up next to the border wall in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were still crossing over Thursday morning and being received by the U.S. Border Patrol. The numbers were notably lower than in recent days.
Ecuadorians Washington Javier Vaca and his wife, Paulina Congo, along with their two children, ages 14 and 7, knew nothing about the change in rules.
“And now will it be better or worse for us?” asked Congo. “We asked for asylum in Mexico and after four months they denied us.”
A Salvadoran man who gave his name as David moved away from the border and back into Ciudad Juarez for fear of being deported.
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Authorities in the remote desert community of Yuma, Arizona, expressed alarm after the average daily number of migrant arrivals grew this week from 300 to 1,000.
Hundreds who entered the Yuma area by crossing the Colorado River early Thursday surrendered to border agents, who later loaded adults and children onto buses.
Mayor Doug Nicholls asked that the federal government declare a national disaster so that Federal Emergency Management Agency resources and National Guard troops can be rushed to his and other small border communities.
Most migrants are transported to shelters operated by nonprofit organizations farther away from the border, but border officials will release them into communities if enough transportation isn’t available. Nicholls said officials have already told him they plan to release 141 processed migrants in Yuma County on Friday.
“The question keeps coming up: ‘What now?’ I’ve been asking that question for two years, with no answers,” said Nicholls. “We are at a situation we’ve never been at before.”
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Hundreds of migrants who have been waiting days for a chance to apply for asylum lined up Thursday along the towering steel bollards separating Tijuana from San Diego.
At one point a U.S. Border Patrol agent bent over and talked to a woman who fainted on the dusty ground.
Others chose not not to crowd the border, instead remaining at shelters in Tijuana to wait for existing asylum appointments or trying to get them online. There were hundreds in the bright yellow buildings of the Agape Mision Mundial shelter, as more arrived at the metal gate with little more than paperwork and a few belongings.
Daisy Bucia, 37, arrived at the shelter over three months ago with her 15-year-old daughter after fleeing Mexico’s Michoacan state due to death threats she received. The two were waiting to take a bus to the inland city of Mexicali on Saturday for an asylum appointment across the border in Calexico, California.
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Leaders of nonprofit organizations that assist asylum seekers away from the border in Arizona say they are as ready as possible for the new scenario.
“We’ll put our best foot forward and approach this with every resource available,” said Teresa Cavendish, executive director of the Tucson shelter Casa Alitas, the state’s largest. “But it may not be enough.”
Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona runs Casa Alitas’ new 300-bed facility for men, as well as four other locations that also temporarily house women, families and vulnerable people for a combined capacity of over 1,000 beds.
David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, who visited the organization’s Welcome Center in Phoenix this week, expressed confidence in the agency’s ability to handle any increase in asylum seekers there. The 340-bed shelter was at less than half capacity.
“The challenge can be managed as long as it is done in an organized and humane manner,” Miliband said.
Beth Strano, engagement manger for the center in a quiet south Phoenix neighborhood, said: “We served 50,000 people last year and 38,000 people the year before that without any negative impact to our clients or community.”
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Smugglers helped Guatemalan Sheidi Mazariegos and her 4-year-old son get to Matamoros, Mexico, where she and the child crossed the Rio Grande on a raft.
But Border Patrol agents took the pair into custody a week ago near Brownville, Texas. On Thursday, the 26-year-old and her son arrived back in Guatemala on one of two flights carrying a total of 387 migrants.
“I heard on the news that there was an opportunity to enter,” said Mazariegos. “I heard it on the radio, but it was all a lie.”
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Aylin Guevara, 45, hurried her steps as she walked through the scorching desert of Ciudad Juarez toward the border.
She was accompanied by her two children, ages 16 and 5, and her husband. The family fled their coastal city in Colombia after receiving death threats and hoped to seek refuge in the U.S.
After spending the previous night in a hotel, they were eager to get to the border — “to get in and go with the help of God and baby Jesus,” Guevara said.
But less than a day before the end of Title 42, when they arrived, a U.S. immigration officer said they could not pass.
“Not anymore, it’s over,” he told them in a firm voice, instructing them to go to bridges 10 miles (16 kilometers) to their left or right.
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Associated Press journalists Gerardo Carrillo in Matamoros, Mexico, María Verza in Ciudad Juarez, Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City and Suman Naishadham in Tijuana contributed to this report. Snow reported from Phoenix.
Dogs and cats come through our doors for various reasons, and many of them have something in common: they need life-saving medical attention. These pets may come to us from Austin Animal Center or from under-resourced shelters throughout Texas. Fortunately, APA!’s programs, such as our Medical Triage & Wellness Clinic, are able to provide the care needed to give these pets a chance at life.
Our skilled medical team cares for hundreds of pets each year with injuries more extensive than many shelters can care for including pets with severe orthopedic injuries.
Each case is approached with care and consideration for what will be the most beneficial and most comfortable solution to support animals throughout the remainder of their lives. Our veterinarians explore many paths to help the pet heal, and sometimes, in the case of orthopedic injuries, that may mean amputation of a limb. That’s what happened to Hercules, who arrived in our care with a badly wounded leg. The best medical attention from our team combined with the attentive care from his foster family could not save his leg. While Hercules’ skin and muscle were able to heal his bone simply couldn’t bear weight anymore. After his amputation surgery, however, the light came back into this senior boy’s eyes and is now a ball of energy and fun!
In some cases, our team knows immediately that amputation is the best choice. After being hit by a car and likely dragged, Paver’s wounds were severe enough that our veterinary medical specialists worked quickly to remove the damaged limb so that this young pup was able to rapidly get his zest back! Paver now moves through life as if romping on three legs is all he’s ever known!
Occasionally, pups come to us after amputation has occurred, like Miss Nora. We don’t know her full story, but we do know that at just two months old one of her front legs had been removed, causing the remaining front leg to develop abnormally. Our staff and volunteer teams work daily to ensure she receives the care she needs, including a custom made sling that supports the front part of her body when she walks.
While It may feel sad or be hard to see a dog have only three legs, amputations are often the only way we can help dogs return to the feeling of normalcy after experiencing a traumatic event. It’s an honor to be able to provide the support these pups so deeply need and to help them find a loving home.
Psst. We have several other tripods available for adoption, too! Bryce, Magnum, Champ and Destiny
Austin Pets Alive! has long been known for innovating, collaborating, and sharing our knowledge of how to save animals’ lives.
But animal welfare is also about humans—the humans who love and own pets, and the humans who work in animal shelters. That’s why we are so thrilled to introduce Pet Pals, our brand new program for at-risk and vulnerable working-age youth to participate in an 8-week paid internship!
The interns, who are between 16 and 21 years old, are learning the ins and outs of shelter management, and gaining the necessary skills and experience to work in animal sheltering—including at Austin Pets Alive!.
Nine interns form our inaugural class. Starting on February 4, every Saturday they are meeting at APA!’s Town Lake Animal Center campus for four hours to explore the world of animal welfare and learn important professional skills.
Each session includes a lesson and/or training, group discussion and activity, one-on-one mentoring, lunch and refreshments, and walking and playing with animals.
The program also involves resume building, mock interviews, and “building up all those interview skills that a young person probably usually doesn’t have access to before they start looking for a job,” says Alexis Telfair-Garcia, APA!’s Social Work Program Development Manager—and one of the country’s very first social workers on staff at an animal shelter.
“Pet Pals gives us and our community an urgently-needed opportunity to close the gap between human and animal services, and develop the next generation of animal welfare leaders,” Alexis says. “We hope, and expect, that this progress won’t stop in Austin, either—but that animal shelters in other communities will start Pet Pals programs of their own.”
Social work students from the University of Texas and St. Edward’s University serve as mentors for the Pet Pals interns, along with Austin Pets Alive! volunteers.
Dr. Ellen Jefferson, President and CEO of Austin Pets Alive!, says her excitement for Pet Pals is in part due to engaging the interns in the urgent work of saving the lives of cats and dogs—and it’s also about helping these young animal lovers realize their dreams.
“One intern told us she’s planning to major in animal science to become a veterinarian, and believes this program can help her get there. Another said they were moved to participate by the death of a beloved dog, and wanting to save the lives of other animals in this pet’s honor,” she says.
“Pet Pals will open doors and new paths for our interns, and change the lives of the cats and dogs who they touch with their work. We’re so proud to be part of the Pet Pals participants’ journey to do great things for people and pets.”
A dangerous wintery mix has hit Central Texas this week. With some of our animal enclosures exposed to the elements, temperatures this low severely strain our facility so we must get our Town Lake Animal Center shelter pets in warm homes TODAY. We’re calling on our community members for help needed NOW:
1. Foster homes for cold shelter animals
We need our animals, especially our dogs, out now until Friday. To help complete the form.
2. Other help for shelters we support
Many neighboring cities’ animals are also at risk during weather emergencies like this, and are often far less resourced than Austin. Long term fosters also needed for dogs coming in from San Benito
3. Education and help for community pets
Read and share this checklist to protect pets where you are.
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.
Need help with a community pet? Visit the P.A.S.S. Facebook group. P.A.S.S. connects you to community member support for emergency pet food, pet resource assistance, and other emergency pet help.
NEW YORK — New York City is temporarily turning a cruise ship terminal into a shelter and services hub for asylum-seekers, Mayor Eric Adams said Saturday, announcing the latest in a series of facilities the city has set up — and sometimes shut down — as it strains to handle an ongoing influx.
The Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will have room, food, medical care and other services for 1,000 single men until it reverts to the cruise business in springtime, the mayor’s office said in a release. Its first occupants will move from another relief center at a hotel, which will switch to accommodating asylum-seeking families with children.
“Our city is at its breaking point,” said Adams, a Democrat who has repeatedly pleaded for state and federal assistance to address the flow of asylum-seekers — some of them bused by out-of-state governors — to the nation’s most populous city. Adams traveled this week to El Paso, Texas, to visit the southern U.S. border and press the point. He declared a state of emergency over the issue this fall.
Altogether, 41,000 asylum-seekers have come to the city since last spring, according to the mayor. With the terminal, the city will have five such “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief” centers for the nearly 28,000 asylum-seekers it is currently housing and those who may yet arrive. Some 77 hotels also have been tapped as emergency shelters.
The city’s previous moves to create shelters for the newcomers have gotten a mixed reception and usage. A plan to erect a hangar-sized tent in a beach parking lot was scrapped amid concerns about storm flooding. The city then built a complex of giant tents on an island that houses a park and sports facilities; the tent facility closed three weeks later after light usage as the number of arrivals slowed for a time.
Some advocates for people who need shelter criticized the cruise ship terminal plan, saying that the waterfront building could flood and is ill-suited to housing people. Hotels are a better short-term option, and the longer-term plan should be to free up space in the city’s existing homeless shelters by making more robust efforts to get their occupants permanent housing, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said.
“Continuing to move asylum seekers around the boroughs like chess pieces is callous and indicative of City Hall’s failure to competently manage this crisis,” the groups said in a statement.
Adams said city officials “continue to surpass both our moral and legal obligations and meet the needs of people arriving in New York.”
NEW DELHI — When midnight approaches in New Delhi and a freezing fog settles over the Indian capital, thousands of homeless people spread torn mattresses and blankets on the pavements and lie on them to keep warm.
Those who can’t afford the blankets spend the night around a smoldering fire built with garbage and discarded cardboard boxes. Others hunker down in a government shelter system.
It’s a scene that repeats itself every year when India’s capital experiences a harsh bout of winter cold, blamed for killing scores of homeless people and leaving tens of thousands of others shivering on the streets.
On Sunday, New Delhi recorded a low of 5.5 degrees Celsius (41.9 Fahrenheit), with India’s weather forecasting agency warning of a severe cold wave from Monday.
New Delhi’s 20 million inhabitants are conditioned to various weather extremes, from blistering heat waves in the summer to thick, grey smog that envelopes the capital before the onset of the winter when a brutal cold wave sweeps most of northern India. The cold blankets streets in freezing fog so blinding that drivers cannot see cars in front of them, causing accidents.
The piercing chill is an ordeal for the city’s homeless, who curl their bodies on sidewalks and sleep as the traffic goes by. Even though the city’s night shelters are a refuge to many who would otherwise find themselves sleeping near busy roundabouts and underpasses, most people there live in harsh conditions. Many of the night shelters are overcrowded and have unclean toilets and no water.
“Overcrowding is a big problem. Because of too much footfall, some people sleep on the roadside,” said Sunil Kumar Aledia of the Centre for Holistic Development, who has worked with Delhi’s homeless population for decades.
India’s 2011 census figures show about 47,000 of the city’s residents were homeless, but activists say the number is a vast underestimate and that New Delhi has more than 150,000 without permanent residences to sleep in.
Official figures also show the city’s 195 homeless shelters can accommodate only about 19,000 people, leaving tens of thousands struggling to keep warm.
As I write this letter, we are preparing for the dangerous Arctic cold
front that is about to blast freezing temperatures into our community
and throughout Central Texas, just in time for the holidays.
Our shelter becomes severely strained with temperatures this low. To
keep our animals warm and safe during this cold emergency, we asked our
community to take in a foster pet during the storm, give funds to
support the increased cost of shelter operations, and help
under-resourced shelters across the region. And you’ve come
through, opening your hearts and homes to the pets who are most in need,
at the time they need that help the most.
Even though our own shelter struggles tremendously during a
disaster like this, we cannot turn our backs on animals in our community
or in shelters that are severely under-resourced. We are compelled to
help out and our community is too. Your support allows us to distribute warm blankets and heaters to pets in need all across Texas.
Our community stepping up to protect pets during a bitterly frigid storm is just one inspiring example of many, of how working together in 2022 we have been able to do so much for homeless pets in Austin, and beyond.
We saved our 100,000th life in February. Copper, a
2-month-old puppy, survived a disease that is a death sentence in nearly
every other animal shelter, thanks to our innovative Parvo Puppy ICU.
Copper is one of the whopping 1,035 puppies who are alive today, solely
because they came through our Parvo Puppy ICU this year.
We celebrated our 11th anniversary of Austin becoming a No Kill city.
Fourteen years ago, animal lovers in Austin banded together to end the
needless killing of shelter pets in our community. We achieved this goal
in three years, and have never stopped fighting for it since. We’ve now
set our eyes on expanding our lifesaving further beyond our
geographical borders, to the areas with the greatest need.
We grew our transport program.
This year we saved more than 2,400 at-risk pets by connecting
underfunded and overwhelmed Texas shelters to organizations in areas of
the country where they would be adopted. In one remarkable transport
mission, in July we flew 89 cats and kittens and 12 dogs from Texas,
where the animals faced likely euthanasia, to our partner in Maine,
where they were received with open arms and hope.
We continued our partnership with Austin FC, our hometown professional soccer club,with 22 of our animals serving as Honorary Mascots during home games.
These include pups who are true survivors, and really deserve to be
celebrated—like Gavin, who came to APA! with severe injuries after being
hit by a car, and needed his jaw reattached; RayRay, who’d been
abandoned in a home when his owner moved out and left him behind; and
Wolff Pack and Alright, Alright, Alright, two more of our parvo
survivors and Parvo Puppy ICU graduates. These furry mascots spread
critical awareness about our lifesaving programs and mission—and the
game-day attention helps them get adopted!
APA! brought nearly 12,000 animals through our shelter this year. We
saved countless more with our hands-on support of under-resourced
shelters, through our No Kill education in which we teach other shelters
and communities how to save the most at-risk animals, and our Human
Animal Support Services project’s focus on pet support and keeping
people and pets together.
These are just a few of our 2022 milestones. We can’t wait to share more with you in our annual impact report. Stay tuned!
Now, as we turn toward the end of the year, let me say thank you for being such an important part of our lifesaving community. It is your support that lets us save these lives.
And now your gift can do even more. A group of generous anonymous donors is matching all donations until December 31st.
Fourteen years ago, we set out to save the pets who were losing their lives in Austin, for no reason other than because they didn’t have a home. Today, as our pets are welcomed into loving foster homes, while a wicked storm approaches, we are so proud of our community. We are proud to be based here, in this city of animal lovers, where every day of every year, we work to save even more of the animals who would not survive without what we do together. We are excited to expand our lifesaving work to wherever at-risk pets need us the most, and we can’t wait for you to be part of it.
On behalf of all of us at APA!, thank you for all you do. Happy holidays, and have a very happy new year.
Dangerous winter weather with temperature lows in the teens is predicted to hit Central Texas this week. With some of our animal enclosures exposed to the elements, temperatures this low severely strain our facility so we must get our Town Lake Animal Center shelter pets in warm homes by THIS THURSDAY. We’re calling on our community members for help needed NOW:
Foster homes for cold shelter animals We need our animals, especially our dogs, out now, before the coldest weather hits Thursday. With Christmas week/holiday travel, we anticipate it will be very difficult to find fosters so if you are staying in the Austin area your help is urgently needed. Email [email protected] or come to our Town Lake Animal Center location (1156 W Cesar Chavez St.) between noon-6pm to foster. We do ask that you keep them in your home until at least Monday, December 26th.
Supplies or monetary donations With facility and extra resource needs to handle this emergency, we are seeking monetary donations now. Click here to make a gift to help fund our response and operations. We also need people to donate any of the following supplies to be two-day shipped or bring them this week to our Town Lake location. (Drop off in front of building C.) Some of these will be sent to the neighboring shelters we support as well.
Blankets (ideally small, fleece – NO sleeping bags)
Medium & large dog coats
Moving blankets
Tarps
Waterproof/self-warming dog blankets
Self-warming heating pads
Space heaters
Heat lamps
Other help for shelters we support Many neighboring cities’ animals are also at risk during weather emergencies like this, and are often far less resourced than Austin. We are also asking for help getting the following urgent needs met for these shelters this week (list will update as we receive requests for help):
The City of Devine Animal Shelter needs an adopter or foster for the animals here, especially puppies.
San Benito needs and adopter or foster for a cat and their dogs here.
Education and help for community pets Read and share this checklist to protect pets where you are.
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.
Need help with a community pet? Visit the P.A.S.S. Facebook group. P.A.S.S. connects you to community member support for emergency pet food, pet resource assistance, and other emergency pet help.
Austin was a very different city for vulnerable companion animals just 14 years ago. Some of the animals most at risk were puppies with parvovirus. Each day these tiny lives were needlessly lost because shelters didn’t have programs set up to treat parvo.
Veterinarians learn how to treat parvo in school, so we wondered why animal shelters couldn’t or wouldn’t. If these puppies could often be saved, why wasn’t treatment the norm? To
save these pets and increase lifesaving in Austin, we had to start
somewhere — and keeping parvo puppies from being euthanized seemed like a
good place to start.
The Parvo Puppy ICU, as we know it today, was born in a bathroom in my house around Thanksgiving 2008. At its peak I could spend up to eight hours a day cleaning and treating anywhere from a couple to 25 sick puppies at a time. Thankfully,
my husband was very understanding and willing to put up with the smell
of sick puppies in our bathroom. Even though it wasn’t ideal having the
strong and unforgettable odor of parvo in our home, it was the only way
to protect these pets in need and give them the critical care they
deserved.
We often share the story of the ICU’s humble beginnings because it
reminds us how far we’ve come. Although I was often the only one
cleaning up after that first batch of puppies, APA!’s capacity to care for animals in need continues to grow thanks to the help of friends like you.
Because of our community’s determination to make Austin No Kill, we were able, eleven years ago, to trade the bathroom tile and pop-up crates for linoleum and metal kennels in a location with easy access to our clinic and round-the-clock staff. The need for support didn’t end when we moved to the Parvo Puppy ICU at TLAC.
Today, parvo puppies are still at risk of needless euthanasia in shelters across Texas that haven’t yet adopted No Kill. As we celebrate the 11th anniversary of No Kill in Austin and its continued impact on pets at high risk of euthanasia we know there is still so much work to do to save even more lives and help other shelters do the same. Will you join us today?
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.
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 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?
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!
More than a decade ago, Austin Pets Alive! stepped forward to provide support to the City of Austin in order to improve, and eventually fix, the Austin Animal Center, which at the time was killing more than 14,000 pets annually. Our goal was to teach AAC to implement best practices in No Kill sheltering and transfer animals to APA! that were at imminent risk of dying. We have since partnered with the city to advocate for policy changes and budget growth while offering free consultative and educational services. Then and now, this has a direct cost to APA! of millions of dollars annually. APA! has provided all of this to the city at no cost to them, but at great cost to us. Through our 501c3, we spend millions each year on the animals we pull directly from AAC. In addition, a 2017 study conservatively measures the annual economic impact of the No Kill movement in Austin at more than $157 million.
While we’ve made tremendous progress as a community, becoming the largest No Kill city in America, today we find ourselves at a crossroads.This summer, AAC intakes, adoptions, the number of pets returned to owners, and volunteer hours are at historic lows. Austin Animal Center is headed in the wrong direction and the City of Austin needs to take corrective action. We are fully committed to maintaining Austin’s status as the safest place in the country for homeless pets. Now we need our colleagues at AAC to do their part.
The above graph shows June data for the past five years, indicating that the burden of animals is at a historic, pre-COVID, low. We collected data in several key areas, including volunteer hours and adoptions, to share with you here. While these charts show performance metrics at the Austin Animal Center are on the decline, AAC’s director is threatening to euthanize animals who have been safe in Austin for more than six years. Foster placements are down and APA! is still having to rescue pets from AAC who should be adopted from AAC, simply because the leadership at the shelter refuses to follow best practices or to adhere to either the No Kill Implementation plan or the 95% resolution passed by City Council in 2019.
While we have long been the City’s largest transfer partner, we also do so much more than simply transfer animals to APA!. We provide food and supplies to homeless pet owners and respond in crisis situations like the recent winter storm. We also have an online community of more than 15,000 individuals known as the PASS program. Through this innovative mutual aid platform, APA! helps thousands of pet owners annually who are faced with having to give up their animals due to housing loss, medical issues, or temporary crises. We also provide hundreds of jobs, offer endless volunteer opportunities to Austinites – both groups and individuals, and offer free consulting and operations support to Austin Animal Center through our Maddie’s Fund Learning Academy.
In addition to all of this, we have helped pass the No Kill Resolution/Implementation Plan, Animal Code Amendment Ordinance, 95% Live Release Ordinance, advocated for AAC to receive 10 million dollars in increased funding, shared protocols and training with AAC management to help them implement best practices, and donated countless hours of peer-to-peer training.
The Austin Animal Center, now one of the most highly resourced government shelters in Texas, has the ability to permanently solve the problems that lead to preventable, seasonal overcrowding.
Here is what we are asking AAC to do now, in order to build a sustainable, public-private partnership with Austin Pets Alive!:
Submit the data required in the Animal Code Amendment Ordinance. Transparent, monthly reporting will clearly illustrate to the public and the Animal Advisory Commission that areas of performance that need immediate improvement, including number of foster placements, number of adoptions, and the number of animals returned to their owners.
Implement emergency space protocols and AmPA!’s other proven protocols in order to avoid future, recurring capacity issues. APA! provides support and guidance to hundreds of shelters around the nation. As we offer our transport triage services and transfer-in help, we ask our shelters to do their part to minimize the number of pets APA! has to get out of the shelter.
Remove bottlenecks to outcomes. Currently, adopted pets cannot go home for days or weeks longer because they are awaiting sterilization surgery. These pets have families waiting for them but are taking up valuable kennel space because AAC procedures are inefficient and proven programs have been eliminated, like the VIP adoption program. This is just one example of where AAC needs to work with both the Animal Advisory Commission and the expert team at American Pets Alive! to improve operational efficiency to avoid capacity issues.
Join the hundreds of animal shelters around the nation who are participating in the Human Animal Support Services Project and learn how other successful large organizations, including several large municipal shelters in Texas, are reducing shelter intake, serving more pets and people in their communities, and keeping families together through pet support services.
Each year, we save thousands of lives of pets right here in Austin and Travis County, and in the counties immediately surrounding Austin. We also provide support, education, and animal transport guidance to shelters all over Texas and beyond. Our ultimate goal is to focus on animals who, without APA’s help, would die or face being killed in a shelter. For this reason, we ask shelters we support to do everything they can to keep as many pets as possible in their homes and communities, in order to reduce shelter intake. We also ask that they learn and follow American Pets Alive! best practices, in order to save as many lives as they can and to serve as many pets as possible within their own cities and towns.
Consultations: Our American Pets Alive! instructors are proven professionals, with a decade or more of experience in the animal welfare field. We offer consultative support for shelters, in order to make recommendations to streamline operations, increase lifesaving, prevent needless pet intakes, and keep all shelter pets healthy. If our team does help your organization transport pets OR if we ‘pull’ animals from you into our organization, we ask that you receive and implement recommendations from our AmPA! team so you can achieve long term solutions to the root causes of the challenges in your organization.
Transport: If your shelter faces chronic overcrowding and you are severely limited on resources to save them, our team can assist you in finding viable transport solutions. Transport is not a ‘magic’ solution to difficulties faced by underfunded, high-volume shelters, but it can be tremendously helpful for some organizations. Here is an example of how El Paso Animal Services is utilizing transport to prevent overcrowding. Reach out if you have a question about how we can help you create a transport relationship with a receiving shelter, get connected to existing transport solutions, or ask anything else about transport.
Transfers to Austin Pets Alive!: In some cases, we may be able to take animals into our organization, with most pets arriving in Austin and heading immediately to loving foster homes. We primarily focus on animals who do not have any other viable options, including pets with contagious illnesses, injured and sick animals, pets with special needs, and in some cases, pets who are otherwise healthy but face imminent euthanasia for any reason. These spaces are very limited, and the need always exceeds our ability to help. If you need help, or are an organization that wants to contribute to our efforts, contact us.
What we ask our partner organizations: Thanks to the generosity of Maddie’s Fund Family Foundation, as well as the tireless support from our Austin community, we are able to offer support and guidance free of charge. Our team is made up of just a few folks and we’re aiming to help organizations all over the nation, so we ask our partners to be part of the solution. If we assist your organization in any way, we ask you to commit to the following:
Follow recommendations (to the very best of your ability) of our AmPA! instructors. They help hundreds of shelters annually and they know their stuff!
Become a Human Animal Support Services partner shelter. HASS is a collaborative of more than 500 organizations and 1,000 animal welfare professionals working together to solve today’s toughest animal welfare challenges.
All levels of the organization work alongside our team to help solve the root causes of your challenges so in the future, we can focus on other shelters in crisis.
What AmPA!-supported shelters have to say:
“AmPA! brings hope. Animal Welfare is a very emotional and lonely existence. Even with us all being in the same field of work, AmPA! gives validation and hope to our everyday lives at the shelter and on the streets.”
“Our live outcomes have changed drastically! Before AmPA! training our local shelter was as 33% live release, since June 2019 it has been at 90+%!”
“The best part of AmPA! visits is how inspired our staff is after they leave. We are a rural small non-profit so being able to see the big picture has been game changing for our team.”
“I appreciate that you provide one on one conversations to help with specific questions and problems in OUR shelter. It’s better than doing research because a live person is hearing your issues and giving ideas on what to do next.”
“Our staff LOVES when AmPA! staff visit. All the AmPA! staff who have visited us are members of our internal organizational page and often participate. Our team gets so excited when they visit and everyone learns so much while they are here. Most of our staff have had no prior exposure to the national scene so feeling a part of a larger movement has been great for their self-identities and commitment to our organization. The presence of AmPA! staff has been invaluable.”
When the winter storm hit a few months back, a lot of shelters in Texas were facing one of the hardest decisions they had to make. They needed to get their animals out to a safe shelter or be left with the choice that no shelter ever wants to make, euthanasia. A lot of these shelters are in rural parts of the state where the kennels are outside and their access to resources is always limited, especially during a weather crisis. That is when Austin Pets Alive! and our national division, American Pets Alive!, sprang into action.We made it our mission to get 1,000 pets out of Texas safely to shelters all across the United States. 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 Loredo, 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. We took a moment to hear from his adopter, Kathryn, to see how our 1,000th pet is doing.
It turns out that Kathryn and her husband are both originally from Texas so adopting Charlie who came from Texas as well felt like it was a perfect fit. “We felt like he was our cat from the moment we saw him. Knowing we came from the same place just cemented that feeling.”
You might be wondering what made them choose KC Pet Project and why they felt now was the right time to adopt. It turns out after mourning the cat that they had for over 18 years who died in 2020, they were ready to bring another family member into their life in 2021. They are an “adopt don’t shop” type of family so Kathryn said going to KC Pet Project was a no-brainer. “Their mission and their compassion made them the perfect place for us.”
“Charlie (as my husband and I call him), “Fluffy Ball”(as my 5 YO calls him), is full of energy and has brought a lot of humor to our house,” Kathryn gushed when asked about what their family loves about Charlie. “As a 7-month-old cat, he bounces around the house constantly, nipping at our legs when we walk by, chasing toys and balls, jumping on beds… so that has been a source of enjoyment for all of us. He is also extremely gentle and patient with our daughter. She gets in his face, kisses him constantly, follows him around, and he is totally gentle with her and never seems to get tired of her attention.”
It’s clear that Charlie is now living the good life with his new family in Kansas City, surrounded by love and affection every single day. It’s heartbreaking to think what his future would have been if he didn’t get the chance to be transported to KC Pet Project, which is why Kathryn wanted to leave you all with this message. “Adopt, don’t shop! There are so many wonderful animals that need a good home. Also, VOLUNTEER! KC Pet Project has wonderful volunteers and plenty of opportunities for individuals and families to volunteer at their beautiful facilities. Make it your mission to make a difference in animals’ lives, whether through adoption or volunteering at the organizations who help them.”
Austin Pets Alive! is always in need of volunteers, and there are various ways you can do so! From walking dogs to feeding bottle baby kittens, to even transporting pets like Charlie from rural shelters to our doors here in Austin; the list is endless. If you are reading this from the Kansas City area, you can find all of KC Pet Project’s volunteer information on their website as well. We wish Charlie a happily ever after with his new family!
AUSTIN, TX – Texas Pets Alive!, Austin Pets Alive!’s advocacy arm, is excited to announce that House Bill 2510, introduced by Representative Candy Noble (R-District 89), will ensure no nonprofit animal rescue will have taxes imposed on adoption fees. HB 2510 is a companion bill to SB 197, filed by Senator Jane Nelson (R-District 12).
Texas Pets Alive! works to promote and advocate for those rescue and shelter organizations that save the most at-risk companion animals in Texas, understanding that rescues across the state often pull homeless pets with expensive medical cases from municipal and county shelters, and cover the costs for those procedures, saving taxpayer money and saving lives.
“I’m proud to carry House Bill 2510. Families who are willing to open their homes to unwanted animals through pet adoption should be applauded by Texans, not taxed by the state,” said Representative Candy Noble. “The efforts of those who work in our rescue and shelter organizations should be rightly focused on the care and placement of the pets, not in the collection and paperwork associated with sales tax receipts.”
HB 2510 clarifies that rescues are exempt in statute from the Texas Comptroller’s Office imposing taxes on adoption fees. The Comptroller’s office has reviewed this legislation and determined that the bill can be administered as written.
“Rescue organizations are a lifeline for large municipal and county shelters, and ensure that animals have more options for leaving the shelter alive,” said Katie Jarl Coyle, Executive Director of Texas Pets Alive!. “Providing this sales tax relief for local organizations ensures they can easily continue to support shelters by pulling the most expensive animals and recouping fees for those costs through adoptions.”
AUSTIN, TX — Austin Pets Alive! coordinated the rescue and transport of 1 dog and 13 cats by plane today. With the help of private pilot David Nelson, the flight to Alpine, Texas and back to Austin saved the 14 pets at-risk of euthanasia from two shelters as part of APA!’s aim to save 1,000 pets in shelters facing tough times in the aftermath of the recent Texas winter storms.
Map updated 3.8
These pets are from Alpine Animal Services and Marathon Animal Shelter, both small, rural shelters lacking resources to care for all the pets that enter their doors. Austin Pets Alive!, through the generosity of donor Nelson, flew to the Alpine area to pick up these pets and return them to Austin before transporting them to shelter partners in Michigan, Chicago, and the DC area later this week.
6-year-old pup George, who was brought back on the lifesaving flight
This roundtrip, same day flight is crucial to lifesaving. Where it would normally be a 12-13 hour day of driving for volunteer transporters, the flight there and back will take just a few hours. Available vehicles, drivers, and funds have historically been major barriers to getting pets in these rural areas to safety, so David’s time, plane, and willingness is invaluable.
Jennifer from Alpine Animal Services loading two cats on the plane
Texas shelters who need help getting pets out as well as shelters that are able to transport and/or receive cats and dogs should contact [email protected]. The biggest need at this time is for organizations that can safely transport pets. To help make these transports happen, people are encouraged to give to Austin Pets Alive! here.
Additional photos and videos of this transport are available for press upon request. Please contact [email protected]
