Sarah Marks
Rescue pups like this little dude have a better chance than ever before of being adopted from a San Antonio animal shelter.
Over 90 percent of the animals sheltered by ACS in December 2015 were adopted or returned to their owners, regardless of their health or temperament. The department claims that it’s on track to meet that mark for January, too.
The no-kill designation doesn’t actually mean that no animals will die in San Antonio shelters. It’s the label applied to cities with at least a 90 percent live-release rate, calculated through the number of animals who are adopted, returned to their owners or rescued. And it only refers to animals that are taken into a shelter — it doesn’t account for those on the street or that are turned away.
The 90 percent live-release rate is a drastic improvement for Animal Care Services. The department’s live-release rate was only 32 percent in Fiscal Year 2011. It rose to 61 percent in Fiscal Year 2012 and has climbed ever since.
"San Antonio’s no-kill status has never been a destination but a journey,” ACS Director Kathy Davis said in a news release. “This historic record gets us one step closer towards making our city more humane for pets but it takes the everyday effort from all of us to sustain our successes and build on them.”
The previous largest city to reach no-kill status was Austin, which has been no-kill since 2011.
