Nearly 200 pets adopted, fostered from AAC over weekend, but capacity issues persist

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Between Friday and Sunday, 192 pets were fostered or adopted from the city's Austin Animal Center (AAC), the shelter said on social media Monday. Staff said 101 pets left the shelter through foster or adoption over the weekend and another 91 were waiting on a spay or neuter before they too headed out the door.

It comes after a memo was put out by the AAC late last month -- once again detailing how overcrowded the shelter is and announcing another restriction on intake.

"To have people step up to really help us out this weekend, it really gave a boost to the staff to see that people still really want to help us out," said Chief Animal Services Officer Don Bland.

But even with an unusually successful weekend, the shelter also saw nearly 100 animals brought in. Bland said they've got two dozen animals in boarding, off-site, because they're still facing serious capacity issues.

To address that ongoing challenge, the city and AAC made several changes earlier this year, including a "finder to foster" program, which makes it easier for people to foster a pet they find by eliminating the requirement to bring an animal to the shelter for an initial 3-day stay.

Bland said even before the busy weekend, 80 people had taken advantage of that new program since it was implemented just months ago.

"Keeping them in the neighborhoods where they are found…they're going to get home much quicker than being over here at the shelter," Bland said.

But even with those changes, AAC's capacity issues are far from resolved, and intake is still capped to deal with such. The City of Austin is looking at possibly expanding AAC operations and Bland says they brought in a firm to collect data on just how many kennels Austin needs, and where they should be located.

"We're hoping that that will shed some light on pointing us in the right direction on where we need to go," he said.