Most people would agree that it’s better for healthy dogs and cats in animal shelters to be adopted than to be killed if a home can’t be found for them before the shelter’s deadline. But in most cities in the United States, “adoptable” animals are being killed in shelters.
“That’s about to change,” says Ryan Clinton, a lawyer and activist who has been at the forefront of a national campaign to save every healthy animal that comes into a shelter. “I really think we are at the tipping point nationally and this is going to happen all over the country very quickly.”
Mr. Clinton has played a large part in helping animals in his own community of Austin, Texas. In 2005 he formed FixAustin.org. The goal was to end the killing of lost and homeless pets at Austin’s municipal animal shelters.
Partnering with other local animal activists, the group persuaded the Austin City Council to pass a resolution to save at least 90 percent of all impounded animals at the city’s shelters.
That “no kill” policy, adopted in March 2010, makes Austin the largest city in the US to pass such a measure. The policy essentially prohibits municipal shelters from killing “healthy or treatable” animals while there are empty cages.
But there’s still a problem, Clinton says. There are many different interpretations of what “healthy and treatable” means.
Austin Pets Alive! was formed to rescue from shelters any animal that is about to be killed for any reason. Inside the Pets Alive! center, amid the bustle and barking, are kittens too young to eat on their own and dogs considered too old to be adopted. Diseased dogs and dogs deemed dangerous to society are there, too.
The Pets Alive! staff works with them all – almost never giving up on an animal, Clinton says. Staff and volunteers sometimes stay up all night bottle-feeding babies or spend long hours rehabilitating aggressive animals.
“We just want to give every animal a chance,” says Clinton, as he maneuvers through an area with donated pet supplies stacked to the ceiling. This summer was particularly busy, he says, because of the wildfires that raged in central Texas. Austin Pets Alive! rescued hundreds of animals at shelters affected by the fires – and then found homes for them.
It’s not rocket science, Clinton says, but it does take work. The key is having adoption centers in a variety of places in communities and offering services such as “pet fostering” (volunteers who give short-term care to shelter animals in their homes), and then constantly getting the word out.