Mar 18, 2021
It has been over a decade since we began the APA! Positive Alternatives to Shelter Surrender Program (PASS). We started this initiative as a result of we acknowledged that Austin pet homeowners have been typically confronted with the horrible selection to surrender their pets on account of housing points, life crises, pet medical issues the proprietor couldn’t afford to deal with, and different human issues. The overwhelming majority of those caregivers liked their pets like household, however their solely selection on the time was to give up the pet to the Austin metropolis shelter.
That’s after we created the PASS Fb group, a protected house for pet caretakers to get sources and assist to assist them hold their pets, or in some instances, safely rehome their pet to a different loving dwelling with out that animal having to enter the shelter system. PASS helps folks briefly board their pet, discover a short-term foster placement, increase funds for medical care, and extra. In the present day, PASS has 12,000 members and serves 1000’s of pets and folks yearly. Although many APA! supporters will not be even conscious PASS exists, it’s among the many most impactful applications within the APA! household of lifesaving services.
Final month, APA! employed our first-ever PASS Coordinator. Till this level, PASS has been operated solely with volunteer assist, managed by one PASS Supervisor, Patty Alexander. On this unprecedented time, extra folks than ever are going through monetary challenges and different hardships that, with out our assist, will end result within the separation of human/animal households and we acknowledge that saving shelter pets needs to be augmented with serving to folks not create extra pets in shelters.
The community-centered philosophy behind PASS has helped create the nationwide Human Animal Assist Companies (HASS) motion, a collaborative venture facilitated by our training and outreach division, American Pets Alive! (AmPA!).
This week, the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Affiliation highlighted our work in a characteristic story entitled, “Animal shelters, control officers, aim to be more community-centric.”
That is the second giant, nationwide publication to focus on HASS, the primary being Fast Company’s September then title article about this massive nationwide initiative.
With the worldwide attain of AmPA!, we are actually in a position to assist tons of of different animal welfare organizations round america and past implement security web and pet assist applications just like the PASS initiatives that work to maintain households collectively. Please take a second to learn this story and we’d like to hear from you if in case you have been impacted by the PASS program, both as a Good Samaritan or somebody who has acquired assist and assist from this group pet assist program!
