A no kill community is one that doesn’t kill healthy or treatable pets. There are many different interpretations of what “healthy and treatable” means, but the communities leading the way have found that at least 90% of pets entering the shelter fit into one of these two categories. Thus, communities that are considered no kill save 90% or more of the pets that enter the shelters.
In November 2009, City Council passed a resolution directing city staff to work with Austin’s Animal Advisory Commission to develop an implementation plan by March 2010 of the Commission’s recommendations that will get us to a 90% save rate.
On March 11, 2010, City Council unanimously passed the plan.
This chart shows the progress in our community and the impact that APA! is making. Check back here every month to see how we’re doing.
| Period1 | Pets Killed at AAC2,3 |
AAC Euth Rate3 | Pets Pulled by APA! from AAC’s Euth List4,5,6 | % Reduction in AAC’s Euth Rate due to APA! | Milestones or Events |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY ’13 YTD | ## | #% | ## | ##% | |
| FY ’08 | 9,946 | 45% | n/a | n/a | |
| Oct 2008 | 676 | 38% | 65 | 9% | |
| Nov 2008 | 431 | 29% | 116 | 21% | |
| Dec 2008 | 400 | 28% | 70 | 15% | |
| Jan 2009 | 287 | 21% | 118 | 29% | |
| Feb 2009 | 281 | 22% | 118 | 30% | |
| Mar 2009 | 349 | 25% | 102 | 23% | |
| Apr 2009 | 397 | 27% | 157 | 28% | |
| May 2009 | 719 | 35% | 310 | 30% | |
| Jun 2009 | 762 | 36% | 227 | 23% | |
| Jul 2009 | 686 | 35% | 127 | 16% | |
| Aug 2009 | 600 | 32% | 222 | 27% | |
| Sep 2009 | 573 | 31% | 151 | 21% | |
| FY ’09 | 6,161 | 31% | 1,783 | 22% | |
| Oct 2009 | 650 | 35% | 161 | 20% | |
| Nov 2009 | 495 | 29% | 188 | 28% | After a directive from City Council, the Animal Advisory Committee and AAC Management began preparing the No Kill Plan. |
| Dec 2009 | 390 | 26% | 140 | 26% | |
| Jan 2010 | 316 | 22% | 185 | 37% | |
| Feb 2010 | 266 | 21% | 151 | 36% | |
| Mar 2010 | 299 | 19% | 314 | 51% | No Kill Plan passed 7 |
| Apr 2010 | 398 | 23% | 385 | 49% | |
| May 2010 | 586 | 28% | 312 | 35% | |
| Jun 2010 | 879 | 35% | 303 | 26% | |
| Jul 2010 | 672 | 28% | 286 | 30% | |
| Aug 2010 | 447 | 23% | 257 | 37% | |
| Sept 2010 | 563 | 28% | 292 | 34% | |
| FY ’10 | 5,961 | 27% | 2,974 | 33% | |
| Oct 2010 | 349 | 19% | 234 | 40% | $757,000 increase to AAC’s budget 8 |
| Nov 2010 | 299 | 20% | 185 | 38% | |
| Dec 2010 | 182 | 11% | 125 | 40% | |
| Jan 2011 | 176 | 12% | 202 | 53% | |
| Feb 2011 | 96 | 7% | 162 | 63% | |
| Mar 2011 | 164 | 10% | 200 | 55% | New AAC director, Abigail Smith, started on March 15. |
| Apr 2011 | 141 | 9% | 234 | 62% | |
| May 2011 | 197 | 11% | 454 | 70% | |
| Jun 2011 | 139 | 8% | 367 | 73% | |
| Jul 2011 | 99 | 8% | 238 | 70% | |
| Aug 2011 | 56 | 4% | 191 | 77% | |
| Sep 2011 | 71 | 6% | 182 | 72% | |
| FY ’11 | 1898 | 11% | 2764 | 59% | |
| Oct 2011 | 84 | 6% | 121 | 59% | |
| Nov 2011 | 61 | 5% | 140 | 70% | |
| Dec 2011 | 98 | 8% | 139 | 59% | |
| Jan 2012 | 54 | 5% | 159 | 75% | |
| Feb 2012 | 81 | 7% | 171 | 68% | |
| Mar 2012 | 56 | 5% | 243 | 81% | |
| Apr 2012 | 72 | 5% | 461 | 86% | |
| May 2012 | 60 | 3% | 561 | 90% | |
| Jun 2012 | 68 | 4% | 583 | 90% | |
| Jul 2012 | 64 | 3% | 694 | 92% | |
| Aug 2012 | 85 | 5% | 537 | 86% | |
| Sep 2012 | 143 | 8% | 391 | 73% | |
| FY ’12 | 926 | 5% | 4200 | 82% |
1 AAC’s2 fiscal year runs from October through September. APA! officially began pulling dogs from AAC at the end of June ’08 and cats from AAC in November ’08. For simplicity of trying to read and understand our numbers, we decided to start with the beginning of the fiscal year in October ’08.
2 AAC, Austin Animal Center, is Austin’s only kill shelter and only open intake shelter, which means they don’t turn away any animal.
3 These numbers come from AAC’s reports.
4 When an animal enters AAC and doesn’t get reclaimed by an owner, the animal is then either chosen to go into AAC’s adoption program or is pulled by one of 100 rescue organizations in Austin. Up until March 2010, if the pet didn’t make it to the adoption program and didn’t get pulled by a rescue group, he went on the euthanasia list, to be killed the following morning. APA! received this list every night and our rescue coordinators pulled off as many pets as we could fit into our program. When the No Kill Plan was passed on March 2010 and the moratorium on killing when cages were empty went into effect, AAC no longer produced a euthanasia list every night, but instead keeps a “no holds list” that includes all pets who haven’t been selected by a rescue group or for AAC’s adoption program. Those pets will wait to be chosen by a rescue group or go into AAC’s adoption program while there is open cage space. When cage space is full and more pets arrive, pets on this list are killed first. APA works closely with AAC on saving the pets on the no holds list that we believe have the least chance of getting out alive through another outlet, but are appropriate for our program (we are currently still building up our dog behavior program in order to take more non-aggressive dogs with behavior issues).
5 While they make up the majority, the pets pulled from AAC’s euth list are only a subset of the total pets pulled into our program. Other sources include found pets, owner surrenders, pets from neighboring shelters, and returns.
6 There may be a slight yearly difference between what we report and what AAC reports due to data entry around the beginning of a new month. For example, we may account for an intake on October 1st when AAC accounted for that intake on September 30th.
7 In March 2010, the No Kill Plan passed, but many items were not yet funded. One point of that plan is the moratorium on killing when there are empty cages.
8 $757,000 increase to AAC’s budget brings their total annual budget for FY2010 to $6.5M. Implementing the budget increase (hiring) will be done by new shelter director, Abigail Smith, in March.
