SaL11-Tara Mica

Help Me Save Lives!

"Many of you have asked how you can help those affected by the Central Texas wildfires. As you know, I volunteer with Austin Pets Alive!, a non-profit that pulls cats and dogs from our local animal shelter when space is limited and they end up on the euthanasia list. We get them healthy and give them temporary quarters in our homes and facilities until they can be adopted out. Our goal is to make Austin a "no-kill" city and in July we had an amazing 94% save rate at the city's shelter. As we've grown, we've started pulling animals from other counties' shelters during overcrowding situations. When fires sprung up and raged in Travis, Williamson, Hays and Bastrop Counties, APA! took animals into our program that had been in those facilities before the blazes. This has freed up space for rescued pets and strays in shelters closer to where they're found, giving them a better chance of being reunited with their owners and receiving medical care without lengthy transport. We took in 60+ dogs from Bastrop and 30+ cats from San Marcos alone, even while our own resources and volunteers were already stretched to the max during the busiest summer months.

"We were lucky enough to have been able to get our cats out when we had to evacuate from our home in Steiner Ranch, and thank goodness our house was spared from that fire. APA! volunteers are accompanying animal control officers into neighborhoods in Bastrop where residents are unable to return yet, in an effort to rescue pets that may have been trapped for days without food or water in homes that were also spared. Hopefully there will be happy endings in many of these situations.

"APA! has waived or discounted adoption fees for dogs and cats in our program over the last week, in an effort to free up space and continue assisting Town Lake Animal Center and shelters in surrounding counties. We need to make up that difference somewhere. Please consider giving to our "Save A Life" drive, which ends on October 31, by clicking on this link.

Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and generosity. And if you can't donate at this time, please send us some rain!!

This Drive is in connection with our Save a Life Campaign at Austin Pets Alive! Learn more here:http://www.austinpetsalive.org/savealife

Updates and Donor Comments

Dianne Jackson 09/27/2011 at 10:22 AM ET
Thanks for all your hard work.
Steve Aikens 09/22/2011 at 07:35 AM ET
Tough times indeed. Thanks for doing this.