A Goal Within Reach

Austin Pets Alive! wants the city to become a no-kill community. But until that time, volunteers continue their work of matching animals with families.

Since the mission of APA! and background is extensive, below is a question and answer section with Austin Pets Alive! communications director Gretchen Meyer.

Q. How long has Austin Pets Alive been in Austin?

A. Austin Pets Alive (APA!) is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to making Austin, Texas, a no-kill city. The nearly all-volunteer organization came into being in 1997 when it successfully advocated for a city council resolution to stop the large-scale killing of abandoned animals in the municipal animal shelter. The City did not meet this goal, however, and over the next decade Austin Pets Alive! focused on developing small-scale programs to improve the lot of homeless pets.. As a result, Austin doubled its budget for animal care and dropped the city shelter’s euthanasia rate from 80% to 50% of intake.

In June 2008 Austin Pets Alive! dramatically changed its role in the welfare of Austin’s animals. Under new president Ellen Jefferson, DVM, the organization’s focus shifted from advocacy to more active intervention, with the goal of making Austin no-kill as rapidly as possible. Austin Pets Alive! develops resources and programs to rescue, foster and adopt out cats and dogs that have been deemed “least adoptable” and scheduled for euthanasia at Austin’s municipal animal shelter. Public awareness and prevention programs like PASS complement this work. Austin Pets Alive! saved over 2,400 pets in its first 18 months and adopted out 2,102 of the city’s “least adoptable” cats and dogs, each, on average, within a few weeks. As a direct result of Austin Pets Alive!’s rescue work, the city’s euthanasia rate fell by more than 20% in 2008. The rate continues to fall in 2009. With effective programs now in place, APA! is leading the City to save 90% of the cats and dogs slated for euthanasia at Austin’s city shelter by 2011.

Q. When/how did the goal of becoming a 'no-kill city' come about?

A. As you can see, APA! had the goal of making Austin a no-kill city for 12 years. In the 90's, San Francisco became the first no-kill shelter in the country and its leaders spread the message that no-kill is possible.

Since then, other communities in North America have become no-kill or have greatly reduced their kill rates by following the programs of the San Francisco model.

Q. Where is APA on meeting the goal of becoming a no-kill city (money wise, $50,000 goal)? And what is involved with it (city council, etc)?

A. First, no-kill is a community-wide goal and there are many, many groups who are making that happen. There are lots of groups in Austin doing amazing work. However, the kill rate at TLAC had stayed constant at about 50% for almost 10 years.

When Dr. Jefferson joined APA! last year, its role was changed to fill in the gaps in Austin, specifically to save the pets who are already born and are at high-risk of dying at the shelter. Through her work with starting the low-cost/free spay/neuter clinic, Emancipet, she realized that spay/neuter alone will not make Austin a no-kill city. APA! now focuses on getting pets out of the shelter and helping owners who are considering taking their pets to the shelter.

Last year, the first year led by Dr. Jefferson, APA! reduced the kill rate at TLAC by over 22%. APA! has rescue coordinators at TLAC every day, pulling out as many pets as it can fit into their program whom TLAC has put on their "euthanasia list" - the list of pets to be killed the following morning. These rescue coordinators believe that 75% of the pets on this list are healthy or treatable, which comes out to about 90% of all pets who enter the shelter.

A generally-accepted definition of a no-kill community is one who kills less than 10% of the pets who enter the system, and that's exactly what APA!'s rescue coordinator's numbers are telling us as well.

The City of Austin just finished Fiscal Year 2009 with a 32% kill rate. About half of that drop is from APA! and the other half is from a decrease in baby kittens entering the shelter. (The Austin Humane Society started a Trap-Neuter-Return program about 2 years ago to sterilize feral cats, which is where this drop presumably comes from.)

APA! will not be able to expand much more to accommodate the rest of the pets who are currently dying unless it finds a building to temporarily house more pets and centralize operations. APA! does not currently have a building.

This year, Austin's City Council directed the Animal Advisory Commission (AAC) to research other no-kill cities and make recommendations on programs and policies that will make Austin a no-kill city. City Council voted on a resolution last month which directs the AAC and TLAC to develop a plan to implement these programs and policies. That plan is due in March. There's a lot more information on our blog about this: http://www.austinpetsalive.org/2009/11/creating-a-no-kill-austin/

Through this plan, APA! is proposing a partnership with the city. Through APA!'s nonprofit status, it is able to actively fundraise to help raise funds privately to make up for the lack of budget TLAC has to process all of the healthy and treatable pets that come into its facility. The City is moving the animal shelter in 2 years and APA! would like to make use of the current shelter location at Town Lake to expand to accommodate the rest of the pets who are currently needlessly dying at TLAC.

I think it's important to state that our need for a building is an urgent need and the partnership with the city is only the beginning-stage of a proposal. Nothing has been accepted yet. We've not had luck in finding a building over the last 18 months and thus believe that the partnership with the city might be the quickest way to get to a no kill Austin. But we really do still need to be spreading the message that we need a building now!

Q. Describe APA's mission from your perspective as someone involved with the organization.

A. This is a great, progressive, organization that really cares about saving pets and is having a lot of success. We are almost all-volunteer and are accomplishing a lot by bringing together compassionate, talented Austinites willing to give their time to save the pets.

Q. Do you believe APA will ever realize the no-kill dream?

A. Of course! There are other communities who are doing it whose animal control departments have much smaller budgets and community culture isn't considered nearly as "progressive" as austin.

Q. What other cities is APA modeling their goal after on the no-kill issue?

A. The AAC used San Francisco, Charlottesville, Reno, Ithaca, and Richmond in their study. I would also add Calgary and NYC as cities we follow. Calgary rocks. They have one of the lowest kill rates and the most progressive programs. NYC isn't quite there yet (38% kill rate), but they've done some amazing things in a short time and have built a city-wide alliance that we are particularly interested in implementing in Austin.