The animal rescue group Austin Pets Alive! has a problem these days. It's not a bad problem to have, but it's still a bit of a problem.
The Town Lake Animal Center has agreed to let Austin Pets Alive! use six of its cages to house dogs overnight. APA will take the dogs out to adoption sites during the day, then will keep animals that were not adopted at the shelter overnight.
The agreement is the first of its kind in Austin, but it presents APA with an immediate need for a new adoption site. It also needs about $10,000 for a transport vehicle and pens and tents for the new site.
"We've got the biggest piece -- where to put the animals -- solved," said Ellen Jefferson, an Austin veterinarian who founded Austin Pets Alive! "We just need the funds to get them out to adoption now."
Dorinda Pulliam, the head of the Town Lake Animal Center, says the unusual collaboration is a pilot project that will help get more animals out to adoption centers.
"This last fiscal year, we got our euthanasia rate down to 32 percent, so this is another one of our efforts to try something new to see if we can continue to drive that rate down," Pulliam said. "That's ultimately our goal is increasing our live outcomes and reducing our euthanasia. So when we have a partner that has a creative idea, we're going to give that idea a try."
Pulliam says the move won't cost the city anything, because APA will be responsible for the animals and their care.
"We're really just providing a foster home," she said. "We're providing a place for them to sleep and go back out to adoption the next day."
Jefferson says the overnight housing could help save hundreds of dogs a year.
"We are reliant on mostly foster homes, and there's just a limit to how many there are," she said. "By getting the shelter space, that gets us a place for six dogs we wouldn't normally have room for, so that saves six more lives. And if we go to a heavily traffic area, we can expect over 300 adoptions a year, so those six cages could house up to 300 animals a year that get saved, that normally wouldn't get saved."
APA takes animals from the euthanasia list at Town Lake Animal Center and takes them out to adoption sites throughout the city.
"By taking Town Lake Animal Center animals to the public and out to various areas of the city, we're making animals more available and making adoption much more likely to happen than if everybody in the city has to go to one place," Jefferson said.
