Why it’s important to encourage dissent when making changes
“If you stand still, the bus is going to run you over,” said Joceyln Kessler in Change Can Be Fun! A Simple, Proven Framework Can Help Take the Pain Out of Change, a 2019 ASPCA Maddie’s® Cornell Shelter Medicine Conference session. Change is necessary, but doesn’t have to be painful. Often times it is a welcome change, but there is still an adjustment. The importance of being able to articulate the change you want in a couple of sentences is crucial. If you can’t...
Maddie’s Weekly Roundup: HASS in action supporting people and their pets, free mobile fundraising tool and more!
Below is a brief round-up of new blog posts and resources we’ve added over the past week. As a reminder, we’ve created an emergency fostering and COVID-19 webpage that we are updating regularly as new resources become available. You’re also invited to join the Emergency fostering during the Covid-19/coronavirus pandemic group on Maddie’s® Pet Forum where you can ask questions, share resources and more. Free mobile fundraising tool for your animal welfare organizationIs your organization looking for new ways to...
Free mobile fundraising tool for your animal welfare organization
Is your organization looking for new ways to fundraise? It’s safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted animal shelters and rescue organizations to pivot and evolve in all areas ranging from adoptions to operations – including fundraising. The pandemic has created economic uncertainty for many, so we thought we’d share this free fundraising tool for your organization to implement. ZOOMGIVE is a mobile fundraising platform designed to help nonprofit organizations simplify their fundraising. This...
HASS in Action: How one NC community rallied together to support people and their pets
As the Human Animal Support Services (HASS) project continues to drive positive change in the animal welfare industry to keep more people and pets together, we wanted to share the touching story, It Takes A Village Working Together: The story of Reverend Demitris Gonzalez. The story is told by Officer Caffray, a Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department (CMPD) Animal Control Officer in Charlotte, NC. Personal stories like this provide concrete examples of what the HASS model strives to accomplish – they provide...
Austin Animal Intake Response & HASS Updates
Jun 29, 2020 June 29th Last week, we shared news about the Human Animal Support Services project (HASS). HASS, a project is that, among other things, aims to create programming to better serve people and pets in many ways, much like social services for humans. We’ve seen some instances of lost pets being turned away at the municipal shelter and finders being recommended to turn those pets loose. This is NOT what we recommend and not part of our HASS guidance. One of the many goals of HASS is to help people who find stray pets quickly,...
HASS: The New Model of Animal Sheltering
Jun 19, 2020 Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been sharing the many changes we’ve made to our operations as a result of the virus and how the outpouring of community support for animals during quarantine has given us the opportunity to reimagine how a community supports its pets. We are thrilled to announce that a coalition of leaders from animal welfare organizations all across the country, including Austin Pets Alive!, has just launched the Human Animal Support Services (HASS) project in 30 pilot cities. The project is led by...
Introducing Dog N’ Dash: Instantaneous Lifesaving
Jun 12, 2020 Meet Bertha: A shy, but sweet, dog with floppy ears and beautiful brown eyes. Bertha struggled to cope in her previous shelter. She became depressed, shut down, and fearful of people. As Coronavirus swept through the nation, the shelter could no longer provide the intensive care and attention Bertha needed and resorted to placing her on the euthanasia list. Thanks to Dog N’ Dash, Bertha’s story didn’t end there. COVID-19 took its toll on animal shelters everywhere. In response, Austin Pets Alive! developed and...
How You Can Help Our Parvo Puppies
Feb 07, 2020 Over the past 24 hours, we have been inundated with offers to help our Parvo ICU and we are so sincerely grateful. This unit is near and dear to my heart because it started in my house before APA! had a building. I know first-hand how hard of a job it is and how overwhelming it can seem when the puppies need so much care as well as medical treatment in order to survive. Since those early days, the Parvo ICU has treated a whopping 5,200 puppies with a live release rate of 85%, which is often better than even what private practice...
Austin City Council Votes to Add No Kill Practice to City Animal Code
Oct 17, 2019 Today was a giant step forward for the animals of Austin- and all of those around the country too. Two historic measures took place that now institutionalize saving lives. Probably the most important thing that the No Kill Movement, driven by the will of pet lovers everywhere, must do is eradicate the broken institution of catching and then killing pets in “shelters” – a practice and policy that has existed for over 100 years. Every government funded shelter in America knows how to catch and kill because it is...
Moving Forward: Maintaining No Kill Through Measurement
Aug 07, 2019 Yesterday, the City of Austin announced that they chose Don Bland to be the next Chief Animal Services Officer. As you know, this is a hiring process that we have been critical of and that we believe highlighted some gaps in the way our city is planning to sustain No Kill. Obviously, Don is not responsible for that and needs to be given the opportunity to succeed here. Today, we fully commit to doing everything we can to make Don and Austin Animal Center (AAC) successful. We left our recent conversations with city leadership...
