Volunteer decides which animals can be saved at Town Lake Animal Center.
By Claire Osborn

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Palmer Neuhaus got the list at 5 p.m. on a recent Thursday. Nine dogs were scheduled to be euthanized the next day at the Town Lake Animal Center, and she had two hours to decide which ones Austin Pets Alive - the nonprofit organization she volunteered for - could save.

As she began walking past the rows of indoor pens, the air filled with the roar of barking dogs. Neuhaus stopped at pen No. 184, where a black and white dog named Noodles cowered on a mat. Its owners had reluctantly given it up because it needed surgery for a large rectal hernia, Neuhaus said.

"Bless your heart," Neuhaus said. "You're in pain."

Then she opened the chain-link door to the pen and sat down in the tiny space with the 8-year-old dog. It let her quietly pet it. She decided to call Animal Trustees of Austin to see if it could pay for the surgery. She also left a telephone message for the owners to see if they would take the dog back if she could arrange for surgery.

For thousands of dogs and cats who end up at the city's main shelter, Neuhaus and others from her group provide a last chance to avoid death. Neuhaus, who works in the financial industry, is a lifelong animal lover and a former employee of the shelter. She ran its health and temperament department in the 1990s. She joined the nonprofit in June and offered to screen dogs at the shelter.

"It's really hard for me to decide if a dog should be put down," Neuhaus said. "It's very emotional for me, but I know there's not many other volunteers in the group who are comfortable with doing this."

During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the shelter took in 23,446 animals and euthanized 10,916 of them. Both numbers were down from fiscal year 2007, when the shelter took in 27,163 animals and euthanized 14,055 of them.

Every day, the shelter makes a list of animals to be euthanized. And every day, a volunteer like Neuhaus takes the list and takes one more look at the animals to see if they can be saved. Neuhaus, who also volunteered at the Cedar Park SPCA when she was in college, said she hasn't had formal training in evaluating animals. She relies on her familiarity with the shelter and her own judgment.

After evaluating the dog with the hernia, Neuhaus stepped into another pen a few yards away. A sheet attached to the pen said the brown terrier mix had medical issues and was "snappy."

"What's up?" Neuhaus said to the dog, which leaped into her arms and licked her face.

"He will be put to sleep because he's snappy?" she said. "That's ridiculous. He's supposed to die today, but I'm willing to bet we can get him adopted by Saturday."

Then she visited a brown and black female pit bull that was slated for euthanasia because she was too fearful and tense. She was so terrified that she wouldn't look at Neuhaus. After Neuhaus led the dog onto a walkway to see how she reacted to barking from other dogs - she didn't bark or growl back - the dog soon lay in Neuhaus' lap, letting the volunteer pet her belly.

"She doesn't deserve to die," Neuhaus said. "See how her eyes relax with very little touch."

Austin Pets Alive - formed to try to make Austin a "no-kill city" - has saved 632 dogs and cats at the Town Lake shelter from euthanasia since June, when it was approved as a rescue group , said Dr. Ellen Jefferson, the group's president and a veterinarian. The shelter had to approve them after they filled out an application explaining where they planned to house the animals and how often they planned to check on foster homes, among other things, Jefferson said.

The shelter works with 85 other rescue groups and shelters, said its director, Dorinda Pulliam . The other rescue groups tend to take purebred dogs, small dogs, puppies and kittens, which are easier to place, she said.

"APA is the only rescue group making a choice looking at harder-to-place dogs and cats," Pulliam said. "We don't have any other group that's saying, `I want whatever's left over.'"

The shelter keeps strays a minimum of three days before considering euthanasia and will sometimes keep an animal considered adoptable up to five months, said Carole Barasch , a spokeswoman with the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department. Animals with behavior problems such as aggressiveness with people or other dogs, extreme fear or severe biting histories are more likely to be euthanized.

Of the nine dogs she visited, Neuhaus decided that only two couldn't be taken by Austin Pets Alive. A small brown dog wouldn't let Neuhaus get near its pen, growling every time she approached. A white pit bull mix named Face had previously bitten someone and was aggressive toward other dogs. Neuhaus left the shelter at 7 p.m. and went home to start contacting foster homes for the dogs she had decided to rescue.

Austin Pets Alive takes the rescued pets to foster homes, which include people the group has met through Craigslist, word of mouth or at its three adoption sites.

The black and white dog with the hernia that Neuhaus tried to save had to be euthanized, she said, because she couldn't reach the owners to approve the surgery. The dog would have had to be returned to them because it was too old to be a likely adoption candidate, and it was in a lot of pain.

"We have to focus on the ones we can save," Neuhaus said.

Neuhaus had better news about the other dogs she visited.

The terrier mix, which the volunteers named Ricky, was already in the group's adoption program and was being taken to adoption sites daily, Neuhaus said. The frightened pit bull - Neuhaus named her Sadie - was going to be spayed for the adoption program. Another dog that Neuhaus had asked the shelter to spare from euthansia for one more day was reclaimed by its owners the next day.

"If a rescue representative from APA wasn't down here on a daily basis, there's no chance any of them would come off the euthanasia list," Neuhaus said.

cosborn@statesman.com; 445-3871
Attachment 15664
Austin Pets Alive took this dog out of the shelter after deciding it would make a good pet.

Group tries to save shelter dogs, cats from death
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