Happy 2012!

Spay Austin Coalition (SAC) has started 2012 with a bang!  On January 9th SAC trapped 31 cats from an East Austin mobile home park.  Volunteers took them to get spayed or neutered and released them back to their home. As of January 12, 2012 SAC facilitated TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return) of 38 cats. Of course, all this excitement has us all fired up and ready for more TNR action! We will be focusing our attention on other East Austin community cats.  Spay Austin Coalition really wants to help make Austin a no-kill city and to help with the humane treatment of community cats.

We are off to a great start and you can help us continue the mission.  We need trappers and volunteers willing to help with transport and recovery, as well as donations of money or cat food.  SAC is also searching for a van to help more efficiently transport a large number of community cats to clinic at one time.

Please help if you can!

Austin Animal Center ribbon cutting 11-12-2011

Austin Animal Center Ribbon Cutting Invitation 11-12-2011

EmanciPET Adds a New Mobile Spay/Neuter Clinic

After years of planning and months anxiously awaiting production, Emancipet is excited to announce the arrival of our new mobile spay/neuter clinic! The gleaming 33’ unit will add some much needed capacity and expand our reach in central Texas – allowing us to do an additional 4,000 surgeries annually.

Please join us on Wednesday, August 10th, at City Hall for a sneak peek of the new unit and a public reception from 5:30-7pm in the atrium. Please RSVP to info@emancipet.org by Friday, August 5th.

The addition of a second unit marks the beginning of an exciting new period of growth for Emancipet, and we couldn’t have done it without the incredible generosity of the following people and organizations:

• Austin Community Foundation:
• Georgia B.  Lucas Foundation Fund,
• 
David W. Leonard Fund,
• Estate of Agnes Edwards
,
• ASPCA
,
• The Mills Dennis Family Foundation,
• 
Emily Bush,
• Kimberly and Steven Bodner,
• 
Bill and Carol Haskins,
• The Epstein Family,
• 
Anonymous Gift in Memory of Puds
, and
• The 2011 Emancipet Board of Directors

Message from Abigail Smith, Chief Animal Services Officer

April 4, 2010

Dear Animal Welfare Partner:

Beginning April 4, the Animal Services Office will launch a two-month Spring Public Awareness Campaign on the importance of spay/neutering pets in Austin.  As you may know seasonal public awareness campaigns are just one strategy of the No-Kill Implementation plan.

I am very pleased to report with the assistance of the City’s Communication and Public Information Office, the Public Awareness Work group, and the generosity of a local advertising agency, MOSAK, we have developed an exciting campaign that will include the following:

• Capital Metro bus wraps
• Yellow Cab Taxi billboards
• Print ads in community newspapers and the Austin American-Statesman
• Promotional postcards
• Radio PSAs
• Social media and media outreach
• Fliers, window and bumper stickers

Attached are the ads that will be seen traveling across the city in the next two months and the artwork for the No-Kill stickers that will soon be seen on cars and windows throughout the community.

I invite your organization to help in the City’s effort to educate the community on the importance of taking care of their pets by getting them spay or neutered.  We will have promotional items available for your use at the Town Lake Animal Center beginning April 13.  I welcome you to stop by the Davenport building and staff will provide you with promotional postcards, bumper stickers and/or window decals.

It is our goal to see as many of these stickers traveling around on vehicles across the city, I hope you’ll help us bring awareness to the animals in our community.

The next campaign will begin over the summer and will focus on adoption and fostering pets.  The campaign will have some of the same medium but we will try other vehicles for advertising such as billboard placement, television PSAs and some grassroots marketing that will involve a virtual adoption/fostering component.  You will be hearing more about the summer campaign in the coming months.

My first several weeks in Austin have been very exciting and I’ve enjoyed meeting some of you and I look forward to meeting those I have yet to meet.  Please feel free to call me with any questions you may have at 972-6088 or e-mail Abigail.smith@ci.austin.tx.us.

Thank you for all you do towards our goal of becoming one of the most humane cities for animal welfare in the country.

Sincerely,

Abigail Smith, Chief Animal Services Officer

Feral Food Drive – Success!

A huge thanks to all the volunteers, participating drop off locations, and especially to everyone who generously donated cat food and/or money for the Feral Food Bank of Austin food drive on National Feral Cat Awareness Day Oct 16th. So far we’ve raised $198 in cash donations (you can still donate here at the Spay Austin website, wink wink), 674 pounds of dry food in assorted sizes and 2492 ounces of canned cat food.

Urban Living Furniture and Mother’s Cafe are still accepting cat food, so stop by with your donation if you want to help.

Thanks again, Austin, for showing your compassion for animals!

National Feral Cat Day Oct 16

In honor of the 10th anniversary of National Feral Cat Day, we are having a feral cat food drive benefiting the Feral Food Bank of Austin. Please help by bringing in unopened bags of dry or canned CAT food. Donations will be accepted at the following locations:

download a flyer

Mother’s Cafe 10-6 on Oct. 16th

Urban Living Furniture 10-6 on Oct. 16th

Tominlison’s Airport location 10-6 on Oct. 16th

Tomlinson’s Cedar Park location 2-6 ONLY on Oct. 16th

Tomlinson’s South location 10-6 on Oct. 16th

Animal Trustees of Austin 10-6 on Oct. 16th

Newflower Market collecting all month 10-4 on Oct.16

Austin Pets Alive! 10-6 on Oct. 16th

emanciPET 10-6 on Oct 16th

If you are a business owner, or just want your favorite business to help collecting cat food, please contact Missey at misseyferalfood@spayaustin.com

Feral Cat Food Bank Opening in October

The Spay Austin Coalition is proud to become an official partner of the Kyle,TX  Petco’s “We are Family Too” program through the Feral Food Bank of Austin, our umbrella organization.

Feral Cats are abandoned pet cats that were once domesticated, now living in the wild, fending for themselves. Irresponsible people let them down by abandoning them, frequently without spaying/neutering. Homeless cats living together are called a “colony”. Feral colonies exist in places where there is a natural resource for them, whether that is shelter, water, food, or all of the above. Once a colony forms, intact cats begin to reproduce. Since gestation is only 66 days, a cat can have up to 4 litters per year. These kittens will probably grow up having no contact with human beings and therefore will be wild. Unfortunately, when one pair of kittens starts propagating, they can produce up to 382 cats by year three and 12,680 by year five (if all of the litters survive and breed). Luckily, if the wild kittens are trapped and tamed at approximately 5 weeks old, they can become wonderful trusting animal companions and NOT continue this terrible cycle.

In 2003 a group of volunteers began a targeted neighborhood TNR (trap, neuter, release) effort that officially became the Spay Austin Coalition in 2005. In that time we have expanded all over the city, even to neighboring towns, and have seen increasing cooperation between animal welfare groups in Austin culminating in the ASPCA’s Mission Orange grant in 2008. As the economy forces feral feeders to make tough choices, the Feral Food Bank of Austin is the next step in Austin’s comprehensive approach to reducing the number of homeless animals and helping the people who care for them.

The PETCO Foundation, in conjunction with PETCO, is building a nationwide network of pet food banks by placing pet food collection bins in PETCO stores across the country. In partnership with local food banks, all food donated to the PETCO Foundation Pet Food Bank program will be distributed to local pet parents struggling to feed their pets.

“Today, more than ever, pets are part of the family; and we don’t believe anyone should have to go through the pain of giving them up because of financial distress,” said Paul Jolly, the PETCO Foundation’s Executive Director. “With PETCO stores across the country visited every day by people who love and care for pets, we saw a huge opportunity to help prevent people from having to make such a heart-wrenching choice.”

For more information on how you can help or benefit from the Feral Food Bank of Austin, please contact Missey at misseyferalfood@spayaustin.com.

Become a TLAC foster parent

Spring has sprung at Town Lake Animal Center and box load after box load of under age animals are coming through our doors everyday. We need more foster homes to help these tiny babies grow into healthy adoptable pets and we need YOUR HELP!!!

For more information about fostering, please visit http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/health/animal_services_pet_foster.htm and submit your foster application TODAY!!!

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any additional questions!

Sarah Hammond
sarah.hammond@ci.austin.tx.us
TLAC Foster Coordinator
1156 W. Cesar Chavez
Austin, TX 78704
Phone: 512-972-6071
Fax: 512-972-6036

Become a Foster Parent for Austin’s Animals

A special meeting of the Public Health and Human Services Committee was held on March 4, 2010, with direction for the following to be included in the plan to take us one step close to being a No Kill city:

1. ~ proceed to develop a mission statement that incorporates the revised mission statement for animal services in the AAC recommendation, and including the 90% live outcome goal, into a broader mission that reflects the full scope of responsibilities associated with municipal animal services;
2. ~ plans for the Davenport Building remain as previously prescribed by Council but recommend that the current TLAC site be maintained for a period of six months after the new Animal Services Center is opened on Levander Loop, at which time staff will come back to Council with recommendation for any future use of the site;
3. ~ proceed with the plan to outsource the comprehensive adoption program at TLAC; and
4. ~ adopt the AAC recommendation to Council and impose an immediate moratorium on killing any animal (except for humane reasons or aggression validated by a behaviorist) when there are cages or kennels available.

The result of that meeting was a presentation at the March 11th City Council meeting to approve a resolution adopting the Recommendations for the Implementation Plan to Reduce Animal Intake and Increase Live Animal Outcomes, and authorizing the City Manager to initiate implementation to the City Council which resulted in a unanimous vote (7-0) in favor of moving Austin closer to the No Kill goal.

Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department’s Animal Services took in over 20,000 animals through TLAC last year. The recent steps by the  Austin City Council to bring us closer to the long term goal of No Kill means many shelters and rescue groups will very soon be at capacity, overwhelmed by the influx of animals as TLAC is under mandate to adopt rather than kill excess animals.

Many animals in the shelter don’t show their true personality because of the stress of being confined to a cage. These animals need your help to learn how to be a part of a loving family until they can be adopted out into a loving, permanent home. You will have the chance to not only make a positive impact on your foster pet’s life, you will be able to help determine your foster’s true personality to insure a good placement into a permanent home.

Each organization has their own requirements for becoming a foster parent/family to a needy pet. Generally, all animals in a foster home must have current rabies vaccinations. If the prospective foster parent rents,  permission from the landlord to have pets at the address is necessary.

You do not need any special training or skills to be a foster parent for homeless animals. Just a little room, a little extra time and a lot of love!

Here are a few pet foster programs in the Austin area to get you started:

• TLAC
• Austin Pets Alive
• Austin Humane Society
• Central Texas SPCA
• Humane Society of Williamson County
• Lifelong Friends (formerly Lago Vista PAWS)
• PAWS Shelter (Kyle, TX)
• SARA Sanctuary (Seguin, TX)
• Etosha Rescue (large breed dogs – Tina Rodriguez, Foster home coordinator)
• Austin Dog Alliance
• Austin Dog Rescue
• Blue Dog Rescue
• Pound Pups
• Forgotten Friends Mixed Breed Rescue
• From the Heart
• Lucky Mutts
• Pet Helpers
• Safe Haven Animal Rescue
• Small Chance Rescue
• Small Paws Rescue
• Wee Rescue (.doc download)
• Austin Boxer Rescue
• Central Texas Dachshund Rescue
• PAWS of Austin (Great Dane rescue)
• Lil’ Paws Maltese Rescue

Find out for yourself how rewarding fostering a pet can be by contacting one of these groups and get involved today!

Tell your Petland sick puppy story on TV

Have you or someone you know recently purchased a puppy from Petland which turned out to have serious health problems? A major cable network is producing a television special about Petland and they are looking to interview people with Petland dogs that are currently having serious health problems.

If you or someone you know has a Petland puppy currently in poor health, please respond as soon as possible to the following e-mail:
puppytv@gmail.com