Commission approves creation of Finder to Foster working group

The Animal Advisory Commission at its regular meeting Jan. 8 voted to officially create the Finder to Foster working group.

Commissioner Paige Nilson explained at the commission’s Dec. 11 meeting that city code currently mandates that when an animal is admitted to the shelter, it must be held for three days.

“And city legal is interpreting that as it must hold it physically at the shelter for three days,” Nilson said. “So without the shelter being in a position to do that, it cannot impound the animal and can’t have the animal in foster.”

City staff confirmed the rule is that the animal must be impounded physically at the shelter during the stray hold, during which the animal can be reunited with its owner.

The language in city ordinance can be found in Title 3 on Animal Regulation, which provides that “the health authority shall hold an impounded animal not surrendered by its owner for a period of three business days following impoundment of the animal for owner reclamation.”

“So city legal reads that as any animal taken into the shelter’s care must physically be held at the shelter for the stray hold,” Nilson said. “So it seems like a Finder to Foster program wouldn’t have this same legal hurdle if this ordinance were modified.”

Chief Animal Services Officer Don Bland said, “If you modified it so that impoundment started when the animal was placed into the database and available for viewing on the website, that would solve the issue.”

Commissioner Luis Herrera asked if the process could be started online. “The animal needs to go physically to the Austin Animal Center, or everything can be online?” he asked. “Like if someone found a dog and they are OK to foster the animal in that moment, begin to count?”

Nilson said she believes the shelter could work on digitizing the process. “If we did something to make it so that the city ordinance no longer prevented the Finder to Foster from happening,” Nilson said. “Because of this wording. And the shelter can work out exactly how they need to implement it and what they need to do.”

She continued, “I just want to also add that, if we advocate for this, which I think is a good thing, I think it’s also incumbent on us to advocate for additional resources for staffing of foster coordinators. Because it’s going to be a lot more animals in the care of the shelter. That takes a lot of people coordinating and making sure those animals are getting preventive care.”

Although the bulk of the discussion occurred in December, the commission did not vote to officially form the working group until its Jan. 8 meeting. The working group will work on a recommendation and is expected to return to the full commission in February.

The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here.