Animal Services Office turns to outside boarding to address shelter crowding

The Animal Services Office has recently resumed use of third-party boarding facilities to handle space constraints and crowded conditions at Austin Animal Center. A memo published last week from Don Bland, chief animal services officer, gave City Council an update on the move to use outside boarding providers, including Austin Pets Alive!, which has become involved in the city’s budget discussions related to the overall issue of shelter and boarding capacity.

The memo said when AAC has no available kennel space after exhausting all adoption, transfer and foster options, APA! and an unnamed second boarding facility have been contracted to house animals rather than resorting to euthanasia.

The early findings from April visits to the third-party spaces found “the animals placed in boarding have received much more individual enrichment and out-of-kennel time than the Austin Animal Center has the capability to provide, even with a substantial volunteer base.”

While the boarding agreements were intended to be short-term solutions until AAC’s population was reduced to a manageable number, ASO has had to continue the program and is swapping out dogs that have been in boarding after 30 days.

The boarding solution has a downside, in that dogs transferred out of AAC are not considered available for adoption because of the time and other resources needed to transfer eligible animals back and forth to the city’s shelter. In that time, if someone sees a dog listed online that is being boarded off-site and wants to adopt them, the city works with that individual to facilitate a successful return and adoption.

The lack of space at AAC and possible options to improve the situation there has been a recurring topic during City Council’s recent budget discussions. During a briefing last month, Budget Officer Kerri Lang noted that as of late July, AAC was at 123 percent capacity for kittens and cats, with small dogs and puppies at 129 percent capacity and medium and large dogs at 122 percent capacity.

Staff and Council members asked if part of the capacity issues are linked to a recent change in the city’s agreement with Austin Pets Alive! to take in 1,200 animals per year compared to the 3,000 transfers they’d agreed to in prior years. Lang noted the fees for Austin Pets Alive! taking on more boarding run between $5,000 and $6,000 per week for 24 animals.

During a budget session earlier this month, Mayor Kirk Watson asked Bland what caused the change. Bland said the reduction was due to a request from Austin Pets Alive!, with the organization’s staff telling the Animal Advisory Commission last month that it was expanding its transfers to other shelters outside of Texas and needed to reduce its intake from Austin.

“They were not taking as many behavior animals as they’d taken in the past because of their capacity as well, but they felt that there were other cities that were in more need than we were at that point, and they wanted to branch out,” Bland said. “That was also when they moved from taking (outside) the five-county area to anywhere.”

In addition to waiving adoption fees and other means to reduce shelter capacity, Bland said ASO has offered rescue organizations cash payments of $250 to $500 to take in animals from AAC. While a contract with the Shelter Planners of America is expected to produce a plan in eight weeks to help the shelter handle its current capacity and outflow problems, Bland told Watson that for budgeting purposes Council should expect the ongoing boarding costs to total about $2 million in the next fiscal year.

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