Help Us Help Austin’s Animals
By Julia Hilder of Spay Austin Coalition
If you are a dog or cat lover here’s a statistic that will make you sick. 12,000 adoptable animals were killed at the city shelter last year because there aren’t enough good homes and way too many puppies and kittens being born.
Public awareness of the crisis is getting more attention and old fashioned attitudes are changing but we still have a lot of work to cut the kill rate and make Austin a better place for our animal friends. Pet overpopulation is a community wide problem and it is the community that must work together to stop the killing. The answer is to spay and neuter your pet and Austin has excellent and inexpensive resources to get the job done.
Where can you get low cost spays and neuters? Emancipet operates a stationary clinic at 7201 Levander Loop and a mobile clinic at various locations in East Austin, 512-587-SPAY emancipet.org and Animal Trustees of Austin performs surgeries at 5129 Cameron Rd 512-450-0111 animaltrustees.org (pictured right).
What about all those feral (wild) cats?
Feral cats in Austin are a big contributing factor to pet overpopulation and the large numbers of cats killed at the Town Lake Animal Center. But Austin is taking a humane and proactive approach to the problem and instead of trapping and killing these cats, they are being spayed and neutered and allowed to return and be fed by residents who were feeding them in the first place. Trap, Neuter and Return is what it is called and the Austin Humane Society is playing a key role in this life saving venture. Twice a week AHS holds clinics to spay and neuter large numbers of feral cats at no cost to the public. Austin Humane Society is located on 124 W. Anderson Ln, Lstivers@austinhumanesociety.org.
As we approach puppy/kitten season in Austin, which lasts from now through the summer and into the warm months of fall, please spread the word to neighbors, co-workers and relatives. Help them to be part of the solution to pet overpopulation by getting pets spayed or neutered.
