[Animals] San Antonio’s Animal Care Services a driving force to save more dogs’ and cats’ lives

[FazzNoth]

People tend to think of city shelters in an old-school way when in fact today, they are often the driving force behind saving more lives in most communities.

So far this fiscal year, ACS’ live release rate (the number of animals that make it out of the shelter through adoption, foster care, or transfer to a rescue group or another shelter) is 89 percent with 2,086 pets adopted, 4,922 pets rescued/transferred, and 2,565 pets returned to their owners.

A shelter is considered “no kill” when it can save 90 percent of its pets. This level of lifesaving requires a highly committed staff keeping the pedal to the metal by delivering services and resources to the community and its rescue partners every day.

Annually, ACS provides 3,000 free community cat surgeries. They maintain their own community cat colony on campus as well as a barn cat program that adopts community cats to businesses and companies willing to provide forever care in exchange for a community cat’s prowess at rodent control.

 

Every day, ACS offers free and low-cost spay-neuter and vaccination services to the public. Residents living in lower-income ZIP codes often qualify for free services. Microchips are free if you live in San Antonio, and cost $5 if you don’t.

ACS also partners with the Animal Defense League to host free monthly vaccination clinics in underserved areas.

A new program coming online later this year is the C.A.S.A. Initiative (Community Animal Support & Assistance program). Through this program, ACS staff will help pet owners cited with animal violations come into compliance with San Antonio’s pet laws. This will be especially those pet owners who want to keep their pets but need a little help to do so. Services may include assistance with medical care, including spay/neuter surgery and vaccinations and microchips, as well as help with weatherproofing shelters andproviding humane tethers for outdoor dogs.

As for the people who work there, public relations and outreach manager Lisa Norwood “We care, and we care hard. Every day, we see the worst that we as humans can do to pets in our community, and we still come back to work the next day.”

https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/article/San-Antonio-s-Animal-Care-Services-a-driving-17088286.php