Lit by the large windows of the Austin Animal Center, Belinda Hare crosses the lobby from her back office to two wooden benches set in the middle. Taylor Swift plays over the speakers as staffers behind the desk work with residents trying to find their lost pets or meet a new furry friend. Everyone knows Hare at the center. She stands out on her tours with her no-nonsense gray hair that isn’t quite yet white, a loud inflection and her caring demeanor.

“I’m embarrassingly bold,” Hare said. “I’m also tragically hopeful.”

Hare retired from her position as department executive assistant for AAC in July. Yet, her departure was short-lived because no one could do the job quite like her. They are still one-person short, at least in the administration area. She only works part-time, so she spends most of her days returning phone calls or responding to the hundreds of emails that greet her each morning.

At the time of her retirement, the center faced spacing issues and low adoption rates. To cope, AAC offered waived adoption fees and limited their intake to emergency cases only. 

Months later,  nothing really seemed to change. 

The Animal Advisory Commission passed a vote of no confidence against Don Bland, the chief animal officer, in June. The commission cited transparency issues with the center’s holding period for stray dogs and refusal to use taxpayer dollars to develop adoption programs potentially benefiting the animals in the city’s care.

The City Council moved forward with an audit, said District 6 Representative Mackenzie Kelly

“The City Council became aware that as a whole that there were issues at the Animal Center, so they passed a resolution,” Kelly said. “That was because we knew something was going on over there, but nothing was being fixed or addressed.”

The Office of the City Auditor presented the report’s results to the Audit and Finance Committee in September. Kelly, who has a scruffy white-and-gray rescue named Frank as a service animal, called the conditions “abhorrent.” Additionally, many constituents stopped Kelly to talk about issues specifically within the center. 

“We need as a city to really invest (to be) a place where we can be proud to have a shelter,” Kelly said. “The picture of what was painted in the audit was not of that at all.” 

Yet, the shelter still maintains the required 95% live release rate. In 2022, the rate was over 97%. However, the shelter is unable to fulfill its other two goals: to serve Austin as an “open-intake shelter” and to provide humane care for its animals, according to the audit.

Bland said many other cities, including Houston and Dallas, have multiple shelter locations with larger capacities but are still falling short of their 95% live release goals. Dallas Animal Services, who are in the midst of developing a new main location that more than doubles the current one’s capacity, reported a 76% release rate for dogs and cats in January. 

“For a municipal shelter, for us to have the live exit rate that we have is unheard of,” Bland said. “No one in the nation’s where we’re at.” 

But there’s just not enough space. 

Hare passes multiple dogs in pop-up crates in the hallways. They rest quietly, though some are more curious and peek around the blanket atop their crates at passersby. Their eyes are glossy and their heads hang low. The shelter tries to rotate its inventory — or population, as Hare calls it — often to avoid dogs in loud holdings or pop-ups from being overstimulated, Hare said. 

Due to space issues, the center decided to limit its intake until further notice in September, the third time it's done so since Austin’s No-Kill plan officially passed in 2011. Since the beginning of last year, the shelter has taken in over 6,000 dogs and received an average of 28 new dogs every day, Bland wrote in a memo to the Austin mayor and City Council. 

At the time of the announcement, over 700 animals were in the center’s care. The ideal capacity for the shelter is around 350, according to a late 2021 press release.

To ease capacity of the city-run shelter, Austin contracts with multiple nonprofits, such as Austin Pets Alive! or the Austin Humane Society, which are obligated to take in a certain number of animals from the city-run shelter.

The Austin Humane Society is a much smaller shelter and only takes animals from AAC via appointments, said director of communications Sarah Hammel. 

“We try to take dogs as much as we can, but our appointments are also booked out eight weeks (in advance),” Hammel said. “We have people reaching out who need help individually, so it's such a balancing act.”

Hammel said it’s hard to find homes for dogs that are bigger and don’t get along with other dogs. Since Austin is a pet-friendly city, she said potential adopters have high expectations for rescue animals. 

“People think that you have to have a dog that wants to be best friends with every other dog in town. And the reality is… most dogs don't want to be best friends with every single dog they meet just like people,” Hammel said. “Dogs that we require to be the only dog or sometimes the only pet in the home is probably the biggest barrier (for them).” 

Hammel’s shelter has many big dogs under its care. The biggest is Tinkerbell, a 120-pound mastiff. She suffers with arthritis after being chained up for an indeterminate amount of time, Hammel said. The mass of brown and tan sprawls out on the cot, her wrinkled face squished between the blue fabric and her paws. Hammel continues down the hallway, passing the kennels of other dogs patiently waiting for a home. 

Many apartment complexes and even some more affordable units have weight or breed pet restrictions that limit potential homes for Tinkerbell. Some do not allow pets at all, Hammel said. To address this, she and other interested parties thought about bringing a new item either to council to be added in the 2011 No-Kill plan or as part of future contracts with developers building affordable units. Yet, animal welfare does not seem to be a critical issue to most council members.

“That would be an amazing change (and) I don’t know if any cities have ever,” Hammel said. “The vibe we get is they all love animals, but the animal issues and the animal crisis in the city isn't really at the top of anybody’s priority list but (what) we've been trying to talk to them about is that a lot of these issues go hand and hand… Housing’s expensive, a big part of the reason people are surrendering pets is that they can't afford it.”

Thirty-five percent of Austin residents are cost-burdened and 16% were extremely cost-burdened, according to a 2022 Austin Housing Works report. Additionally, the median household income is around $120,000 yearly, while the average home price was almost $600,000, the report found.  

Hammel said shelters and nonprofits stay competitive by offering different services to the same community of potential adopters and animals. Yet, Clare Callison, senior director of care operations, said the industry is still trying to undo “decades of old practices” that stunt program development in shelters. 

“I've visited shelters in South Texas, for example, that are on the same grounds of a city dump or the landfill,” Callison said. “That's (an) old way of thinking that animals were sort of disposable and they're just the same as the city your trash. Those are like evidence of the past, but it's not the future.” 

At the animal center, Hare believes educating the community will help as they continue to implement the recommendations given by the audit. Some solutions are reasonable, such as more events or focusing on advertising themselves to the public. Some are products of Hare’s bold nature  — she jokes with her co-workers about busing residents to tour the property herself and laughs at the idea of an older woman steering a pedal-powered bus. 

Then a dog barks or a volunteer rushes past them with a pile of dirty blankets. They go their separate ways and Hare returns to her office to answer one of those emails waiting for her.

​

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I wrote this piece as part of a class assignment two years ago. I scoured through city documents, including the agendas, city memorandums, audits and past years of the city of Austin’s budget. Once that was complete and I viewed the city council meeting in which the audit was discussed, I reached out to and interviewed representative Mackenzie Kelly. Then I proceeded to interview and tour as many animal shelters and centers I could throughout the city. The interview and tour for the Austin Animal Center was almost two hours long. I took detailed notes and sat down with center leadership for a final interview.
 

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