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The Animal Advisory Commission voted on Monday to call on the city council to immediately implement a series of recommendations to alleviate blockages at the Austin Animal Center in order to ward off the euthanasia specter as a management solution to a shelter space crisis.
The Commission’s action further illustrates the growing tensions between the commissioners and the animal center’s management.
The recommendations, made by a commission working group, are a direct response to a memo from Chief Animal Services Officer Don Bland to Mayor Steve Adler in June warning that euthanasia would be an option if the shelter doesn’t face its space crisis could get a grip on it.
Austin has been a nationally recognized no-kill city since 2010. The no-kill policy, which continues to be supported by the majority of council members, relies on partner rescue organizations and volunteers to ensure its success.
The working group, led by Commissioner Palmer Neuhaus, produced a report that identified several problem areas and recommendations on how to mitigate the problems. The report identified the castration / neutering function of the shelter as “the greatest source of bottlenecks” and suggested a practice to sterilize healthy animals within 48 hours of their occupation.
Additional recommendations relate to restarting the shelter’s public resources, such as: Providing drive-through hours for microchip and pet food scanning and other supplies; and the appointment of animal welfare officers for seven-day working weeks.
“Wherever appropriate, staff shortages should be alleviated through solid volunteer integration,” the report says. The recommendations also require the city to designate the shelter as an essential service that allows staff and volunteers to be kept on-site at capacity levels.
The working group found the new space-saving initiative of the animal center to be problematic for transporting dogs to animal shelters outside of Germany. A dog intended for transport is marked as “not available” to the public, which means that there is no possibility of local adoption or rescue by a partner organization. Animals scheduled for transport should be marked as unavailable for no longer than 24 hours, the report recommends.
The report found that the Austin Animal Center’s program had been in decline over the past two years and recommends a more robust return to employee and volunteer-run enrichment programs.
The commission requested weekly access to all collected data on sterilizations, place count reports on all kennels and a routing list and other information on dogs and cats marked as “unavailable”.
In its written reply to the Commission, the animal center rejected several points. In order to sterilize within the recommended 48 hours, the shelter would need to eliminate emergency services for stray and owner-surrendered animals. “Without this emergency medical care, these animals would be at risk of euthanasia,” wrote officials at the shelter. “These emergency services are an integral part of our operations and have a significant impact on the live outcome rate.”
If the Pet Resource Center stays open seven days a week, it would lead to increased admissions and less space in the kennel, the animal center said, adding that staffing would be an issue and that it would be impractical to rely on volunteers to leave who take on such an emotionally charged responsibility.
Animal center officials also declined the recommendation to restrict the “not available” label to dogs being sent to animal shelters in other states, citing several logistical issues with the change and the fact that the new transport program is being refined .
However, the commission did not accept the shelter officials’ reasoning for not accepting the recommendations. Several commissioners expressed their dislike of the new transportation program overall, noting that pets have recently been shipped to communities in Colorado and Wisconsin that have a higher killing rate than Austin.
“Our recommendation on this issue does not change,” said Commissioner Monica Frenden each time she summarized the centre’s response to each recommendation.
The motion to send the recommendations to the Council received 7-3 votes, with Commissioners Lotta Smagula, Jo Anne Norton and Luis Herrera opposed and two Commissioners absent.
Photo made available under a Creative Commons license.
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