Five Years of No-Kill in Austin

Eighteen years ago, long before Jo Anne Norton ever became a volunteer at Austin Pets Alive!, she and her husband walked into the Town Lake Animal Shelter in search of a new pet. Scanning the rows of kennels, Norton was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of animals in need of new, permanent homes. While the couple did eventually adopt one of the shelter’s many dogs, Norton still feels a sense of guilt whenever she thinks about what may have happened to the dogs she and her husband left at Town Lake.

She knew the ones she didn’t adopt would likely die.

When Austin became a no-kill city in 2011, it immediately earned distinction as the largest such municipality in the United States, a credit that the city still holds today. Before the policy was instituted, the city’s live outcome rate – that is, the rate of animals who leave the shelter to foster or permanent homes, or third-party organizations like APA, hovered around 60%. When Patricia Fraga, a media liaison at the Austin Animal Center, began working at the shelter in 2009, animals were routinely euthanized for space.

“It was a totally different environment,” Fraga said. “No-kill shifted that mindset from euthanizing animals for space, to saying, ‘OK, we’re not doing that any longer, so what programs do we have to put in place to get these dogs out of here?'”

Since, hundreds of cities across the nation have adopted no-kill. Problems, particularly concerning overcrowding, have plagued some programs where partnerships between the community and shelters haven’t been as robust. That includes smaller towns like Odessa, Texas, and Lebanon, Missouri, which two years ago experienced such overcrowding that the city’s no-kill program had to get rescued by the state’s Humane Society. Austin didn’t become a no-kill city overnight, but those who advocated for the policy emphasize the importance of groups like APA – which took over the Town Lake Animal Shelter after city services moved east to Levander Loop – who play a vital role in ensuring the city shelter can maintain its 90% live outcome goals – the thrust of no-kill.

“No city can achieve this without that network and support,” stressed Fraga. “[Austin] has a long history of being a caring community toward its pets and animals. So it was a natural progression, I guess, to actually have this no-kill plan, and actually have this goal – and the community could be a part of it.”

Austin’s animal loving community worked to weave no-kill into the city culture. But there were also questions in the early stages of no-kill from parts of the animal welfare community who remain skeptical of the city’s policy to this day. Coming to consensus on the no-kill policy didn’t happen quickly, and remains something the city, animal welfare groups, and community at large work hard to maintain. If animals aren’t adopted out from the shelter, they generally – barring serious health or behavioral concerns – get another chance with a rescue group (for specific breeds) that has more time and resources to devote to placing dogs. Many fosters find homes for their temporary pets at work or through faith-based organizations.

“We don’t do what we do to achieve the numbers,” said Chief Animal Services Officer Tawny Hammond. “We make the right decisions for the right reasons, and when you do that the numbers are there when it comes to achieving a live outcome of whatever percentage your goal is.”

Since her retirement last year, Norton walks dogs each morning at the same shelter where she once made her heart-wrenching choice. She’s glad it’s now run by APA.

“I don’t think I could volunteer at a shelter that wasn’t no-kill,” she said.

Getting to 90%

This past February marked five years since City Council passed Austin’s No-Kill Implementation Plan, a 34-point doctrine declaring how it plans to spare the lives of at least 90% of the animals who show up to its shelters. The city achieved no-kill status the following March, 2011, and the language that went into effect that month remains in place today. It requires a coalition of the city’s Animal Services Department, local nonprofits, and invested community stakeholders to work in tandem to create a framework that can care for the thousands of animals that go through the shelter each year. The Austin Animal Center took in more than 17,000 animals in FY 2015. Dur­ing the same time, APA accepted more than 7,000 animals, either from the public or as transfers from the city or another entity.

It’s a complicated machine; when each cog’s not working in sync, the results can be horrific. The Kansas City Star ran a takeout in 2014 (“Growth of no-kill policies can jam animal shelters,” Aug. 30) on the difficulties cities, particularly in the Midwest, faced while adapting to the challenges of no-kill policies. The most readily apparent problem is overcrowding. This summer in Texas, the city of Odessa sounded the alarm about its lack of space and asked for help from the community to house some animals.

That’s part of the reason why PETA told the Star in 2014 that euthanasia is sometimes “the more compassionate option than these other cruel fates” – to perish or to suffer? The Star also noted the emphasis on marketing and fee discounts as a way to encourage adoptions. Since no-kill came to Austin, promotions that cut or otherwise eliminate adoption fees for shelter cats and dogs have become somewhat of a routine.

Mike Martinez worked for three years to pass the ordinance during his term on City Council. He acknowledged the complexity of the no-kill issue, and said that community support and enthusiasm was key, especially because of the cost. (It was estimated the policy would cost the city $1 million per year.) “Everyone’s all for good policy, until they find out, ‘Oh wait, they’ve got to spend money?'” Martinez said. “‘Maybe it’s not so good.’ We had to go through that.”

Martinez describes the beginning of his push for no-kill as “lonely.” Council faced a lean budget; investing money in pet rescues was going to be a tough sell, at least early on. Martinez and other CMs, in particular Laura Morrison, won support from the community and city staff eventually, however – paving the way for a resolution’s Feb. 2010 approval.

The policy proved a much different tactic than the status quo. Before no-kill, shelter staff would create space during times of high intake by euthanizing animals that could be considered less adoptable – because of age, health, or temperament. But that wouldn’t happen anymore after Austin’s no-kill policy went into effect in 2011. Now when the shelter is overcrowded, a team of foster homes is on-hand to take in animals. APA and other rescue groups pick up the slack. It takes many different parts of the machinery working together to keep no-kill humming.

“That was probably the hardest part. Our city staff truly didn’t believe in [no-kill] at the time,” Martinez remembered. “The leaders of our animal shelter and our staff leadership at the city really didn’t care about no-kill and didn’t want to do it. And there were some animal rescue groups that were also opposing us, and that was difficult.”

The New Regime

Tawny Hammond took over as chief animal services officer in the summer of 2015. She says Austin’s reputation as a no-kill city was one of the primary reasons she chose the job. Yet months after she took the position, the city auditor released a sobering report on the city’s Animal Services Department, casting a specific eye toward the ways in which the center was functioning in its first four years under no-kill.

The report acknowledged that the city was complying with the 90% threshold for live outcomes, but noted overcrowding at its new facility on Levander Loop, animals not receiving necessary care, and a department that wasn’t necessarily responding promptly enough to 311 calls about loose or aggressive pets. It recommended that Hammond review kennel practices, set in place better systems for collecting data, and come up with a better way to “safeguard shelter drug inventories.”

The city had actually been experiencing issues with no-kill since as early as the summer of 2012. That July, the Chronicle reported that, while the city had reached a 92% live outcome rate, Animal Services was having serious capacity problems 17 months into the policy – at both its Levander Loop site and the aging Town Lake Animal Shelter that now houses APA (“$1 Million: The Next Price Tag on No-Kill,” July 27). “Certainly since the busy season started this summer we have struggled to keep up with enough personnel to adequately take care of all the animals,” the city’s former chief animal services officer, Abigail Smith, told the Chronicle then. “There’s definitely some improvement that needs to be done there. But it’s more difficult to give the highest level of care when you have more animals than you thought you would have …. There are a gazillion animals, and we’re short-staffed. It’s a nightmare.”

Part of the reason for Smith’s problems was that the city was never supposed to operate two shelters on its own. “Community involvement” wasn’t just a term thrown around to make donors feel fuzzy. It’s a necessity, in this case in particular. Ham­mond told the Chronicle that the shelter has between 600 and 700 animals in foster homes at any particular time. It’s during those foster periods that Animal Services is able to learn more about each pet’s behavior: Shelters are so stressful on an animal’s psyche that it’s hard to get an accurate read.

In Hammond’s tenure, the live outcome rate has steadily risen from 2014’s 94% to as high as 98%. “Ever since Tawny showed up, she’s put an incredible staff together,” said Martinez. “She’s taken it even further than we thought it would go. She’s really committed to it.”

What Comes Next?

Last month, Council oversaw a series of contentious hearings concerning a mandatory spay/neuter ordinance on first impound. That means if an intact dog escapes its yard and ends up in city holding, its owner would have to agree to have the animal spayed or neutered before it’s returned back home. Currently, the shelter has a mandatory spay/neuter in effect on second impoundment.

The discussion brought out the ugly side of animal welfare politics in Austin. Oppo­nents painted a grim picture of the policy that they believe leaves animals elsewhere in the county in the cold – leading to people dumping unwanted pets rather than deal with city bureaucracy. Delwin Goss, a longtime East Austin resident and active supporter of animal welfare rights who still considers no-kill akin to “euthanasia by proxy,” called any mandatory spay/neuter on first impound resolution “a teensy step in the right direction,” but one the city should ultimately take in order to fully commit to spay/neuter. Animal Services staff told Council that there wouldn’t be very many animals affected by the policy. Austin and Travis County together already spend close to $600,000 on stray spay and neuter procedures each year.

APA Director Ellen Jefferson knows all about that cost, having founded the low-cost spay/neuter clinic Emancipet in 1999. Jefferson, a veterinarian, left Emancipet for her current job with APA in 2008. “I really believed that spay/neuter was the answer, and so I put 100 percent of my effort into it, working pro bono even, trying to get as many animals spayed and neutered in the community as possible,” Jefferson said. “Over those nine years, I could see the positive and negative of that, and also that we weren’t making that kind of impact. I didn’t expect to spend almost 10 years of my life spaying and neutering and not see the city be anywhere close to no-kill.”

Martinez suggested critics of no-kill are precisely why the people who worked so hard to pass the policy in 2011 stay in close contact today. “We do know the minute we take our eyes off of it, it could slip at any moment,” he said. “When an issue comes up, and Tawny [Hammond] needs our support in front of City Council, we’re there – we’re calling our council members.”

Hammond expects the next five years under no-kill to be data-driven and community-oriented. In December, Animal Ser­vices announced a two-year pilot program aimed at three ZIP codes in Central and East Austin that experience a higher than average 311 call rate, a higher than average intake, and a lower than average reclamation rate. She hopes to learn what community resources are specifically missing in those neighborhoods and how Animal Services can connect people to those services. With more than 70% of dogs coming into the center as strays, this $1.1 million pilot program could make an impact.

“The idea is if we can keep pets in homes, before that bond is broken, before the pet becomes lost, before the pet becomes surrendered, that’s better for the animal and that’s one animal that doesn’t come in and sit in a kennel,” said Hammond. “[In] the next five years, Austin Animal Services and this community we serve will be finding out what people need to keep pets in their homes.”

Live Outcomes

This article appears in December 23 • 2016.