More animals to be killed in Austin
Councilmember Krista Laine lead effort to dismantle rescue safety net
The Austin, TX, city council continues to dismantle the safety net for animals entrusted to the care of Austin Animal Center (AAC), the city pound. After years of declining standards, the council has now approved a resolution to allow pound veterinarians to spay full-term pregnant dogs and cats, kill each of the kittens or puppies, and not record them in outcome data. Existing law, which was written by The No Kill Advocacy Center, requires AAC to notify rescuers and allow them to save the moms, wean the puppies/kittens after birth, and then find homes for all.
Not only does killing these puppies and kittens violate the No Kill philosophy, but it is also a way to obscure statistics. Because they are not yet born, even when they are full-term, their deaths are not recorded. After being killed one by one with an overdose of barbiturates, their bodies are discarded in the trash, and their deaths rendered invisible.
Even when not individually killed, when a mother is spayed, the kittens and puppies die from anoxia (oxygen deprivation) due to a lack of blood supply from the uterus once the vessels are clamped. They suffocate.
On a practical level, there is no backlog of pregnant animals waiting to get spayed at AAC — they all go to rescue groups. However, there is a backlog of other animals waiting to be spayed, and operating on pregnant animals will only exacerbate the situation. So why the resolution to end the rescue policy? It is a power grab by regressive staff at AAC who have long opposed changes to the status quo that limited their power — in this case, their power to kill. There is also evidence that they are working on an effort to eliminate all rescue notification requirements, so that they can kill any animal despite rescue groups being ready, willing, and able to save them.
Leading the charge to dismantle the rescue safety net is Councilmember Krista Laine, who sponsored the resolution. And if she continues to get her way, because the other council members blindly follow along, more animals will die.
Despite that Austin Animal Center has not been No Kill for some time because it kills healthy and treatable animals and tells residents to abandon animals on the street, councilmembers continued the charade that they are, claiming that “since 2010, Austin has been a proud No-Kill city and a leading model for the nation in compassionate, life-preserving shelter practices” — even as they dismantle those practices. The result is that Austin is no longer an inspiration but a cautionary tale.