Austin Needs To Rebuild Its Model, Not Kill For Space

Shelters all over the United States are struggling, including Austin Animal Center and us right here at Austin Pets Alive!. In 2011, Austin became a No Kill community and has remained so with increasing save rates year over year. With the recent city ordinance changes and AAC’s latest announcement stating that hard decisions may need to be made for 20+ dogs who volunteers say should never be at risk, it's safe to say that we’re facing the real chance that Austin is dangerously close to stepping into the wrong side of history.?

We know the majority of our community members want Austin to be the safest city in the nation for shelter pets, which means more than keeping animals alive. We know this to be true after combing through the results of the survey we put out earlier this year and from comments splashed on many social media posts about the problems we’re experiencing right here in Austin. We also know that there’s a lot of blame going around and we have been part of that. We believe that AAC is creating its own problems and we’re hearing from those who think APA! isn’t doing enough to help Austin because we also serve animals throughout Texas. It’s true that APA! and AAC don’t always see eye to eye. After all, we’re two completely different organizations. AAC is the government-funded city shelter and APA! is a donor-funded nonprofit animal welfare organization that has a contract to help the city by taking in at least 12% of the pets that come to them annually. We have different missions, we take in different populations of dogs and cats, we even have different points of view at times when it comes to delivering services and medical treatments. But here’s where we’re alike. We both have teams of passionate, knowledgeable staff and volunteers who truly love and want what’s best for the animals in our care. We both want pets to find adoptive homes and never suffer. We’re both operating in a system that wasn’t made for No Kill and we’re both hurting because of it.

The current model of animal sheltering wasn’t designed with lifesaving in mind and it also doesn’t serve today’s view of the animal/human relationship. The model continually finds itself in crisis and if we don’t do something different we will always end up in the same spot. Where animal sheltering is today, threatening “hard decisions” (aka killing for space) is not the answer. It only causes more pain and the problem will never go away. Building more shelters is not the answer. If you built a shelter that housed 10,000 animals, I guarantee you that it would just be a matter of time before all 10,000 kennels are full and more animals are lined up at the door. Rescues like APA!, that were built to help shelters, now being responsible for being a safety net for our city shelter by swooping in to take more animals from Austin isn’t the answer. This ongoing crisis has also taught us that the concept of No Kill on its own isn’t the answer. The saving isn’t over until they are in a home. We know why this is happening and we deeply sympathize with it as we also struggle with moving pets fast to adoptive homes. The city chose an identity of innovation and treating each animal as an individual 15 years ago but the commitment to that identity is waning. It’s not enough for our city to say “no kill is not at risk” when regular decisions are being made to undermine it. It’s critical that our city government choose who they want to be in the future. Do they want to be like all the other large cities in Texas, barely hanging on to lifesaving programs or do they want to be like Google Maps in a paper map world -- breaking out beyond the history and into a world where pet guardians, shelter staff and volunteers and pets are happier, more capable and more included. This won’t happen overnight and it won’t be easy but it starts with a decision.??

If you’ve been following APA! you know that we face similar struggles?as AAC in many ways. And that is why we are looking at ways to solve problems without changing who we are as an organization. Our identity is solid: We will never kill for space. Right now -- while shelters are full, including APA!, and because we know who we are and what we stand for, we have chosen to change our business model -- it’s no longer possible to just save pets and quickly move them to adopters. Our own bottleneck is real. We can choose to just shut our doors and stop helping others or we can choose to change what we do so we can help other shelters even more. These changes are not easy and we’re making some mistakes along the way but there is no other choice but change. The truth is we’re debuting new concepts because we’re in a really hard situation. That’s why you’re seeing us embarking on a rebuilding campaign that will include a hospital, transport hub, a rehabilitation facility and a new foster and adopter support center, but it won’t include a humongous warehouse filled with kennels. We’re also moving toward a more volunteer-and-foster centric business model. And we are working hard to equip and empower our staff to be the beginnings of a true workforce profession where our industry historically has only supplied “jobs.”

Change happens when people work together to make it happen. I’m often asked how the community can help beyond fostering and adopting. You can help by asking our city leaders to make animal issues one of their top priorities. It’s quite telling that the city manager candidates were not asked a single animal question in the forum earlier last week.

The plea for help from the city is the right time to not only step up to help them with the space crisis but also loudly advocate for, first, the identity that embodies the three legged stool of No Kill, Humane Care, and Community Safety and, second, the path to make it so. The progress made in Austin pre-COVID happened because people spoke up and contributed ideas and time to help to move progress. If you’d like to use your voice to help shelter pets in Austin, please sign up to learn more about how you can help!