Animal shelter last refuge for hundreds of cats and dogs, Daily Mail Online
Off the hook: Inwards the Texas animal shelter for the hundreds of cats and dogs abandoned during Hurricane Harvey
Published: 21:Ten BST, two September two thousand seventeen | Updated: 00:06 BST, three September two thousand seventeen
Thousands of Texans may eventually be able to come back to their flood-ravaged properties in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
But for the more than 1,500 four-legged evacuees crammed into the state’s largest animal rescue center there are simply no homes for them to go back to.
Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger from flooded neighborhoods and animal shelters across southeast Texas.
Their staff have toiled day and night with thousands of volunteers to coordinate rescue efforts and bring the homeless critters back to their Austin headquarters.
Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger across southeast Texas
More than 1,500 animals have needed to be housed at the shelter as others across the state have had to close or adjust with dazed
But with more shell-shocked animals arriving every day, they face an immense task in finding all of their adorable guests a fresh family.
So far the big-hearted Texas public are more than doing their part, with hundreds of Good Samaritans coming forward to enlist as foster parents or begin the adoption process.
They include Sandra Pitts, 35, an IT specialist waiting in line to take home a fresh canine playmate for her two dogs, Rocky and Rogue.
The staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a rigorous ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them
With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Legitimate,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals
‘I shed more tears over the dogs than I did the humans,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I think it’s because they are so vulnerable and defenseless.
‘I went online to find a way to help and this was the most prominent place. Animals mean everything to me. My dogs are my children.’
Angelina Wedding, 41, is already smitten with her fresh adopted companion Vishnu, a four-month-old Border Collie mix.
The lovable pup was rescued from a shelter in Victoria, close to where Hurricane Harvey made landfall, battering the town with 80mph winds and dumping forty inches of rain in less than forty eight hours.
Angelina Wedding, 41, is already smitten with her fresh adopted companion Vishnu, a four-month-old Border Collie mix
The lovable pup was rescued from a shelter in Victoria, close to where Hurricane Harvey made landfall, battering the town with 80mph winds and dumping forty inches of rain in less than forty eight hours
Founded by leading vet, Dr. Ellen Jefferson, Austin Pets Alive! has been in operation since two thousand eight and has about one hundred staff members bolstered by around Two,800 unpaid volunteers
‘I don’t buy from breeders because these animals need us more’, said Wedding. ‘He’s so sweet, he loves people. I’m going to train him as a therapy dog.’
Unlike typical shelters, the staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a stringent ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them.
‘Some of these dogs were up to their necks in water when they were rescued from flooded shelters,’ said Development Director Maggie Lynch. ‘In a disaster people are helped very first naturally, but we stepped in because these animals have no-one else’
But they knew that smaller facilities sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Harvey would have little choice but to put their residents to sleep rather than let them drown in the flooding.
By the time the storm began to sweep inland their rescue teams were already en route to response SOS prayers from across the region, loading up thousands of animals from shocked shelters, some in the nick of time.
‘Some of these dogs were up to their necks in water when they were rescued from flooded shelters,’ said Development Director Maggie Lynch.
‘In a disaster people are helped very first naturally, but we stepped in because these animals have no-one else.’
With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Legal,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals.
They also put out prayers for donations on social media and listed essential items they needed on an Amazon wish list.
Soon they had supplies arriving by the car-load as well as Amazon trucks pulling up to their gates piled high with cat litter, bedding, kennels, collars and leashes.
‘People are sending so much stuff we don’t know what to do with it,’ added Lynch. ‘We’ve rented three storage spaces. One is four thousand square feet but it’s almost total an hour after we rented it.
‘I can’t even begin to tell you how much it’s worth to us.’
Vistors and staff members give some much-needed love to the pets housed at the make-shift shelter
The shelter put out prayers for donations on social media and listed essential items they needed on an Amazon wish list
All the animals encountered by Austin Pets Alive! are very first checked to see if they have microchips to make sure they are not being taken away from loving owners.
But those confirmed as abandoned or coming from shelters are brought in and looked over by vets before being fed and provided with warm, dry beds and fans to keep cool.
In the event an animal doesn’t have a name he or she is quickly given one by staff, who attempt not to give any two residents the same name.
A glance around the cattery section of the shelter provides ample examples of the staff’s imagination: Ziplock and Twitter are purring contently in their cages while their neighbor Amazon tucks into his dinner.
A woman walks her dog along a dog’s crossing as her baby sleeps on her back
The shelter does have a ‘saturation point’ but with so many people coming forward every day, staff hope they never have to turn away a single animal
There’s also a Flea-once and a Swiffer McPuddles.
‘These animals have been in shelters, on boats, in cars just to get here,’ Marketing Manager Lindsey Picard told DailyMail.com.
‘Some of them have been in shelters that were flooded or the roofs collapsed.
‘We have some dogs in particular who are very panicked but we are attempting our best to make them convenient and safe.
‘There also been a lot of cat on cat cuddling in our shelter. After what they’ve been through I can imagine it’s very significant to feel someone next to you.’
‘These animals have been in shelters, on boats, in cars just to get here,’ Marketing Manager Lindsey Picard told DailyMail.com. ‘Some of them have been in shelters that were flooded or the roofs collapsed’
Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted
Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles because the shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care
Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted.
Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles because the shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care.
Donations of food and other supplies stacked outside the shelter. ‘People are sending so much stuff we don’t know what to do with it,’ added Lynch
‘Ever since the storm began we’ve had a line out of the door. Some people have waited for three hours,’ added Picard.
‘The support has been unreal. It’s left me speechless. Fairly a few people fall in love with their animals and adopt them.’
Across town the freshly set up shelter building is a hive of activity, with volunteers carrying in crates of food and taking turns to take the dogs out for walkies or dips in a paddling pool.
The big space was an empty warehouse until Christina Houtz, 26, read about the group’s incredible mission on Facebook.
She called her stepfather Scott Looney who had a vacant furniture store in Austin and was only glad to lend it to them.
‘Within hours they were already setting up,’ said Christina, a wedding coordinator who flew in from Orange County, California, with her nine-month-old son, Holden.
‘My hubby and I have a Superb Dane and an Italian greyhound. I was sitting at home blubbering eyes out at what was happening so I just booked a ticket and came.’
Founded by leading vet, Dr. Ellen Jefferson, Austin Pets Alive! has been in operation since two thousand eight and has about one hundred staff members bolstered by around Two,800 unpaid volunteers.
The shelter does have a ‘saturation point’ but with so many people coming forward every day, staff hope they never have to turn away a single animal.
‘We know that Hurricane Harvey has put around 200,000 animals at risk and it’s heartbreaking to think that a lot of animals have died,’ added Lynch.
‘But we’re doing a good job of getting the message out on social media and people are truly stepping up to help us.
‘People treat their animals like family, and for those that don’t have family, we will never abandon them either.’
The shelter does have a ‘saturation point’ but with so many people coming forward every day, staff hope they never have to turn away a single animal
The yam-sized space was an empty warehouse until a woman read about the group’s incredible mission on Facebook. She called her stepfather who had a vacant furniture store in Austin and he was only blessed to lend it to them
Animal shelter last refuge for hundreds of cats and dogs, Daily Mail Online
Special: Inwards the Texas animal shelter for the hundreds of cats and dogs abandoned during Hurricane Harvey
By Ben Ashford In Austin, Texas For Dailymail.com 21:Ten BST two Sep 2017, updated 00:06 BST three Sep two thousand seventeen
- Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger across southeast Texas
- The staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a stringent ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them
- With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Legal,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals
- They’ve had to take over explosions from other shelters shocked by the increase in strays
- Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted
- Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles
- The shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care.
Thousands of Texans may eventually be able to come back to their flood-ravaged properties in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
But for the more than 1,500 four-legged evacuees crammed into the state’s largest animal rescue center there are simply no homes for them to go back to.
Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger from flooded neighborhoods and animal shelters across southeast Texas.
Their staff have toiled day and night with thousands of volunteers to coordinate rescue efforts and bring the homeless critters back to their Austin headquarters.
But with more shell-shocked animals arriving every day, they face an immense task in finding all of their adorable guests a fresh family.
So far the big-hearted Texas public are more than doing their part, with hundreds of Good Samaritans coming forward to enlist as foster parents or begin the adoption process.
They include Sandra Pitts, 35, an IT specialist waiting in line to take home a fresh canine playmate for her two dogs, Rocky and Rogue.
‘I shed more tears over the dogs than I did the humans,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I think it’s because they are so vulnerable and vulnerable.
‘I went online to find a way to help and this was the most prominent place. Animals mean everything to me. My dogs are my children.’
Angelina Wedding, 41, is already smitten with her fresh adopted companion Vishnu, a four-month-old Border Collie mix.
The lovable pup was rescued from a shelter in Victoria, close to where Hurricane Harvey made landfall, battering the town with 80mph winds and dumping forty inches of rain in less than forty eight hours.
‘I don’t buy from breeders because these animals need us more’, said Wedding. ‘He’s so sweet, he loves people. I’m going to train him as a therapy dog.’
Unlike typical shelters, the staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a rigorous ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them.
But they knew that smaller facilities sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Harvey would have little choice but to put their residents to sleep rather than let them drown in the flooding.
By the time the storm began to sweep inland their rescue teams were already en route to reaction SOS prayers from across the region, loading up thousands of animals from perplexed shelters, some in the nick of time.
‘Some of these dogs were up to their necks in water when they were rescued from flooded shelters,’ said Development Director Maggie Lynch.
‘In a disaster people are helped very first naturally, but we stepped in because these animals have no-one else.’
With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Legal,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals.
They also put out prayers for donations on social media and listed essential items they needed on an Amazon wish list.
Soon they had supplies arriving by the car-load as well as Amazon trucks pulling up to their gates piled high with cat litter, bedding, kennels, collars and leashes.
‘People are sending so much stuff we don’t know what to do with it,’ added Lynch. ‘We’ve rented three storage spaces. One is four thousand square feet but it’s almost total an hour after we rented it.
‘I can’t even begin to tell you how much it’s worth to us.’
All the animals encountered by Austin Pets Alive! are very first checked to see if they have microchips to make sure they are not being taken away from loving owners.
But those confirmed as abandoned or coming from shelters are brought in and looked over by vets before being fed and provided with warm, dry beds and fans to keep cool.
In the event an animal doesn’t have a name he or she is quickly given one by staff, who attempt not to give any two residents the same name.
A glance around the cattery section of the shelter provides ample examples of the staff’s imagination: Ziplock and Twitter are purring contently in their cages while their neighbor Amazon tucks into his dinner.
There’s also a Flea-once and a Swiffer McPuddles.
‘These animals have been in shelters, on boats, in cars just to get here,’ Marketing Manager Lindsey Picard told DailyMail.com.
‘Some of them have been in shelters that were flooded or the roofs collapsed.
‘We have some dogs in particular who are very panicked but we are attempting our best to make them comfy and safe.
‘There also been a lot of cat on cat cuddling in our shelter. After what they’ve been through I can imagine it’s very significant to feel someone next to you.’
Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted.
Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles because the shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care.
‘Ever since the storm commenced we’ve had a line out of the door. Some people have waited for three hours,’ added Picard.
‘The support has been unreal. It’s left me speechless. Fairly a few people fall in love with their animals and adopt them.’
Across town the freshly set up shelter building is a hive of activity, with volunteers carrying in crates of food and taking turns to take the dogs out for walkies or dips in a paddling pool.
The phat space was an empty warehouse until Christina Houtz, 26, read about the group’s incredible mission on Facebook.
She called her stepfather Scott Looney who had a vacant furniture store in Austin and was only glad to lend it to them.
‘Within hours they were already setting up,’ said Christina, a wedding coordinator who flew in from Orange County, California, with her nine-month-old son, Holden.
‘My hubby and I have a Excellent Dane and an Italian greyhound. I was sitting at home howling eyes out at what was happening so I just booked a ticket and came.’
Founded by leading vet, Dr. Ellen Jefferson, Austin Pets Alive! has been in operation since two thousand eight and has about one hundred staff members bolstered by around Two,800 unpaid volunteers.
The shelter does have a ‘saturation point’ but with so many people coming forward every day, staff hope they never have to turn away a single animal.
‘We know that Hurricane Harvey has put around 200,000 animals at risk and it’s heartbreaking to think that a lot of animals have died,’ added Lynch.
‘But we’re doing a superb job of getting the message out on social media and people are truly stepping up to help us.
‘People treat their animals like family, and for those that don’t have family, we will never abandon them either.’
Animal shelter last refuge for hundreds of cats and dogs, Daily Mail Online
Off the hook: Inwards the Texas animal shelter for the hundreds of cats and dogs abandoned during Hurricane Harvey
By Ben Ashford In Austin, Texas For Dailymail.com 21:Ten BST two Sep 2017, updated 00:06 BST three Sep two thousand seventeen
- Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger across southeast Texas
- The staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a stringent ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them
- With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Legal,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals
- They’ve had to take over fountains from other shelters shocked by the increase in strays
- Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted
- Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles
- The shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care.
Thousands of Texans may eventually be able to come back to their flood-ravaged properties in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
But for the more than 1,500 four-legged evacuees crammed into the state’s largest animal rescue center there are simply no homes for them to go back to.
Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger from flooded neighborhoods and animal shelters across southeast Texas.
Their staff have toiled day and night with thousands of volunteers to coordinate rescue efforts and bring the homeless critters back to their Austin headquarters.
But with more shell-shocked animals arriving every day, they face an immense task in finding all of their adorable guests a fresh family.
So far the big-hearted Texas public are more than doing their part, with hundreds of Good Samaritans coming forward to enlist as foster parents or begin the adoption process.
They include Sandra Pitts, 35, an IT specialist waiting in line to take home a fresh canine playmate for her two dogs, Rocky and Rogue.
‘I shed more tears over the dogs than I did the humans,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I think it’s because they are so vulnerable and defenseless.
‘I went online to find a way to help and this was the most prominent place. Animals mean everything to me. My dogs are my children.’
Angelina Wedding, 41, is already smitten with her fresh adopted companion Vishnu, a four-month-old Border Collie mix.
The lovable pup was rescued from a shelter in Victoria, close to where Hurricane Harvey made landfall, battering the town with 80mph winds and dumping forty inches of rain in less than forty eight hours.
‘I don’t buy from breeders because these animals need us more’, said Wedding. ‘He’s so sweet, he loves people. I’m going to train him as a therapy dog.’
Unlike typical shelters, the staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a rigorous ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them.
But they knew that smaller facilities sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Harvey would have little choice but to put their residents to sleep rather than let them drown in the flooding.
By the time the storm began to sweep inland their rescue teams were already en route to reaction SOS prayers from across the region, loading up thousands of animals from perplexed shelters, some in the nick of time.
‘Some of these dogs were up to their necks in water when they were rescued from flooded shelters,’ said Development Director Maggie Lynch.
‘In a disaster people are helped very first naturally, but we stepped in because these animals have no-one else.’
With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Eighteen,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals.
They also put out prayers for donations on social media and listed essential items they needed on an Amazon wish list.
Soon they had supplies arriving by the car-load as well as Amazon trucks pulling up to their gates piled high with cat litter, bedding, kennels, collars and leashes.
‘People are sending so much stuff we don’t know what to do with it,’ added Lynch. ‘We’ve rented three storage spaces. One is four thousand square feet but it’s almost total an hour after we rented it.
‘I can’t even begin to tell you how much it’s worth to us.’
All the animals encountered by Austin Pets Alive! are very first checked to see if they have microchips to make sure they are not being taken away from loving owners.
But those confirmed as abandoned or coming from shelters are brought in and looked over by vets before being fed and provided with warm, dry beds and fans to keep cool.
In the event an animal doesn’t have a name he or she is quickly given one by staff, who attempt not to give any two residents the same name.
A glance around the cattery section of the shelter provides ample examples of the staff’s imagination: Ziplock and Twitter are purring contently in their cages while their neighbor Amazon tucks into his dinner.
There’s also a Flea-once and a Swiffer McPuddles.
‘These animals have been in shelters, on boats, in cars just to get here,’ Marketing Manager Lindsey Picard told DailyMail.com.
‘Some of them have been in shelters that were flooded or the roofs collapsed.
‘We have some dogs in particular who are very funked but we are attempting our best to make them convenient and safe.
‘There also been a lot of cat on cat cuddling in our shelter. After what they’ve been through I can imagine it’s very significant to feel someone next to you.’
Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted.
Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles because the shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care.
‘Ever since the storm began we’ve had a line out of the door. Some people have waited for three hours,’ added Picard.
‘The support has been unreal. It’s left me speechless. Fairly a few people fall in love with their animals and adopt them.’
Across town the freshly set up shelter building is a hive of activity, with volunteers carrying in crates of food and taking turns to take the dogs out for walkies or dips in a paddling pool.
The hefty space was an empty warehouse until Christina Houtz, 26, read about the group’s incredible mission on Facebook.
She called her stepfather Scott Looney who had a vacant furniture store in Austin and was only glad to lend it to them.
‘Within hours they were already setting up,’ said Christina, a wedding coordinator who flew in from Orange County, California, with her nine-month-old son, Holden.
‘My spouse and I have a Excellent Dane and an Italian greyhound. I was sitting at home howling eyes out at what was happening so I just booked a ticket and came.’
Founded by leading vet, Dr. Ellen Jefferson, Austin Pets Alive! has been in operation since two thousand eight and has about one hundred staff members bolstered by around Two,800 unpaid volunteers.
The shelter does have a ‘saturation point’ but with so many people coming forward every day, staff hope they never have to turn away a single animal.
‘We know that Hurricane Harvey has put around 200,000 animals at risk and it’s heartbreaking to think that a lot of animals have died,’ added Lynch.
‘But we’re doing a good job of getting the message out on social media and people are indeed stepping up to help us.
‘People treat their animals like family, and for those that don’t have family, we will never abandon them either.’
Animal shelter last refuge for hundreds of cats and dogs, Daily Mail Online
Off the hook: Inwards the Texas animal shelter for the hundreds of cats and dogs abandoned during Hurricane Harvey
By Ben Ashford In Austin, Texas For Dailymail.com 21:Ten BST two Sep 2017, updated 00:06 BST three Sep two thousand seventeen
- Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger across southeast Texas
- The staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a rigorous ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them
- With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Legitimate,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals
- They’ve had to take over geysers from other shelters dazed by the increase in strays
- Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted
- Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles
- The shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care.
Thousands of Texans may ultimately be able to come back to their flood-ravaged properties in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
But for the more than 1,500 four-legged evacuees crammed into the state’s largest animal rescue center there are simply no homes for them to go back to.
Austin Pets Alive! has become the last refuge for hundreds of stray or abandoned cats and dogs that were plucked from danger from flooded neighborhoods and animal shelters across southeast Texas.
Their staff have toiled day and night with thousands of volunteers to coordinate rescue efforts and bring the homeless critters back to their Austin headquarters.
But with more shell-shocked animals arriving every day, they face an immense task in finding all of their adorable guests a fresh family.
So far the big-hearted Texas public are more than doing their part, with hundreds of Good Samaritans coming forward to enlist as foster parents or begin the adoption process.
They include Sandra Pitts, 35, an IT specialist waiting in line to take home a fresh canine playmate for her two dogs, Rocky and Rogue.
‘I shed more tears over the dogs than I did the humans,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘I think it’s because they are so vulnerable and defenseless.
‘I went online to find a way to help and this was the most prominent place. Animals mean everything to me. My dogs are my children.’
Angelina Wedding, 41, is already smitten with her fresh adopted companion Vishnu, a four-month-old Border Collie mix.
The lovable pup was rescued from a shelter in Victoria, close to where Hurricane Harvey made landfall, battering the town with 80mph winds and dumping forty inches of rain in less than forty eight hours.
‘I don’t buy from breeders because these animals need us more’, said Wedding. ‘He’s so sweet, he loves people. I’m going to train him as a therapy dog.’
Unlike typical shelters, the staff at Austin Pets Alive! operate a stringent ‘no kill’ policy, refusing to euthanize healthy animals however challenging it is to rehouse them.
But they knew that smaller facilities sitting directly in the path of Hurricane Harvey would have little choice but to put their residents to sleep rather than let them drown in the flooding.
By the time the storm began to sweep inland their rescue teams were already en route to reaction SOS prayers from across the region, loading up thousands of animals from shocked shelters, some in the nick of time.
‘Some of these dogs were up to their necks in water when they were rescued from flooded shelters,’ said Development Director Maggie Lynch.
‘In a disaster people are helped very first naturally, but we stepped in because these animals have no-one else.’
With so many fresh arrivals – Two,000 are expected by early next week – the non-profit had to expand its operations into an Legal,000 sq ft former furniture showroom now housing around four hundred animals.
They also put out prayers for donations on social media and listed essential items they needed on an Amazon wish list.
Soon they had supplies arriving by the car-load as well as Amazon trucks pulling up to their gates piled high with cat litter, bedding, kennels, collars and leashes.
‘People are sending so much stuff we don’t know what to do with it,’ added Lynch. ‘We’ve rented three storage spaces. One is four thousand square feet but it’s almost total an hour after we rented it.
‘I can’t even begin to tell you how much it’s worth to us.’
All the animals encountered by Austin Pets Alive! are very first checked to see if they have microchips to make sure they are not being taken away from loving owners.
But those confirmed as abandoned or coming from shelters are brought in and looked over by vets before being fed and provided with warm, dry beds and fans to keep cool.
In the event an animal doesn’t have a name he or she is quickly given one by staff, who attempt not to give any two residents the same name.
A glance around the cattery section of the shelter provides ample examples of the staff’s imagination: Ziplock and Twitter are purring contently in their cages while their neighbor Amazon tucks into his dinner.
There’s also a Flea-once and a Swiffer McPuddles.
‘These animals have been in shelters, on boats, in cars just to get here,’ Marketing Manager Lindsey Picard told DailyMail.com.
‘Some of them have been in shelters that were flooded or the roofs collapsed.
‘We have some dogs in particular who are very panicked but we are attempting our best to make them comfy and safe.
‘There also been a lot of cat on cat cuddling in our shelter. After what they’ve been through I can imagine it’s very significant to feel someone next to you.’
Already around 1,200 animals have been lined up with foster homes where dogs will stay for around two to four weeks, and cats around four to six weeks, while they wait to be formally adopted.
Each foster parent is screened for suitability by ‘matchmakers’ and must live within twenty five miles because the shelter is legally responsible for the animals’ medical care.
‘Ever since the storm embarked we’ve had a line out of the door. Some people have waited for three hours,’ added Picard.
‘The support has been unreal. It’s left me speechless. Fairly a few people fall in love with their animals and adopt them.’
Across town the freshly set up shelter building is a hive of activity, with volunteers carrying in crates of food and taking turns to take the dogs out for walkies or dips in a paddling pool.
The enormous space was an empty warehouse until Christina Houtz, 26, read about the group’s incredible mission on Facebook.
She called her stepfather Scott Looney who had a vacant furniture store in Austin and was only blessed to lend it to them.
‘Within hours they were already setting up,’ said Christina, a wedding coordinator who flew in from Orange County, California, with her nine-month-old son, Holden.
‘My spouse and I have a Excellent Dane and an Italian greyhound. I was sitting at home blubbering eyes out at what was happening so I just booked a ticket and came.’
Founded by leading vet, Dr. Ellen Jefferson, Austin Pets Alive! has been in operation since two thousand eight and has about one hundred staff members bolstered by around Two,800 unpaid volunteers.
The shelter does have a ‘saturation point’ but with so many people coming forward every day, staff hope they never have to turn away a single animal.
‘We know that Hurricane Harvey has put around 200,000 animals at risk and it’s heartbreaking to think that a lot of animals have died,’ added Lynch.
‘But we’re doing a fine job of getting the message out on social media and people are truly stepping up to help us.
‘People treat their animals like family, and for those that don’t have family, we will never abandon them either.’
