Saving One Paw at a Time

Meet Storm, a sweet dog rescued by Austin Pets Alive!

BY: GOLDIE KLEIN

Austin Pets Alive Gives Animals a Chance at Life

Enjoying the warmth of a cozy bed, Westly Crane peacefully relaxes with toy by his side

He was only 4 months old, covered with rashes and ticks that crawled into every decaying pore. He was deserted on the side of the road, like a cliche dump and go. Cars passed the cardboard box without a thought of there ever being an innocent and mistreated soul remaining on the inside. He, who had to turn into a scavenger and survivor, was only a dog. Things would get better though, because Austin Pets Alive would step in.

Austin Pets Alive (APA), a local animal shelter in Austin, Texas, believes that every shelter animal should get a true chance at the life they deserve. One of the biggest problems many places such as Austin face is not having the resources, education, and programs to cancel out the ultimate outcome of putting animals down. As a rescue organization, they battle the clock that runs against the lives of the animals with motivation and perseverance.

Jeff Isacksen, a martial arts instructor and personal trainer, and his partner adopted Wesley Crane, a Plott Hound mix. APA put out a call for needed fosters after Hurricane Harvey hit Galveston. Isacksen said that once they laid their eyes on Crane, they knew Crane was the one.

“I was like, ‘that’s my dog. We are not fostering this dog, we need to adopt this dog. I have to have this dog’,” Isacksen said. “I was uncomfortable fostering him because that meant that someone could adopt him out from under us. I mean I fell in love with this dog instantly.”

Experiencing a similar encounter, Emily and Tim Leadingham adopted a dog from APA this past June. Storm, a Husky and Cattle dog mix, had been put on a kill list at a shelter in another city, but luckily APA swooped in and took Storm in. Since they both have jobs for the state, they wanted an older dog rather than a puppy.

“His foster had only had him a week. We told the foster when we left: ‘We are going to talk about this a little bit tonight, and we will make a decision in the next couple days’,” Tim said. “We got back in the car, and we weren’t 5 minutes down the road before we decided we wanted Storm.”

Due to being a non-profit corporation, APA is very inclusive with volunteers and those volunteers often speak well of APA’s mission. It is important to many people that shelters take every dog, animal, and life seriously.

“I wanted to make sure that we adopted from someplace that THE AUSTIN TAIL | 9

A dog is a man’s best friend. Jeff Isacksen and Crane share a bond that is always and forever.

wasn’t just a machine, that wasn’t just a place pushing out dogs to anybody and everybody,” Tim said. “APA is very selective, I like the process that they go through. There’s a lot of shelters that will adopt out to people who don’t even have a home and that’s not a good environment for a dog.”

Even with these selective processes, it is still hard to match a dog to a family. Most of the dogs that are taken in are found on the streets with lacerations and have developed a distrust of humans. Isacksen said Crane can be a challenging dog and in order to adopt him, they had to attend multiple meetings about how to take care of a dog aggressive pet.

“They warned us that he was on a short list of unlikely to be adopted dogs. He has anxiety problems and a lot of behavior issues that mostly stem from sheltering anxiety,” Isacksen said. “They went through a lot of steps with us to make sure that we were the right people for a difficult dog, that he wasn’t going to wind back up at the shelter in two weeks.”

Isacksen also said that APA provided a behavioral support team that was there to support and help the new adopters and the dogs.

“I have been blown away by how good they were to him [Crane], and how much help they gave us in getting him into our house and set up for success,” Isacksen said. “I walked away educated on some of the things that, even as I grew up with dogs, I didn’t know. Because now when I walk out in the community, I’m carrying knowledge I didn’t have so that I can be a better ambassador to the dogs that are around me.”

Having been provided the behavior support team, Emily said that the team is committed to helping any dog with their easy, correctable behavior issues. The discovery of the APA Facebook groups, where past adopters from APA can offer their thoughts and opinions, was also very useful to Emily and Tim Leadingham.

“We did have some struggles with Storm at first, he was very reactive to other dogs. If we walked him and he saw another dog across the street, he would do aerobatic flips in the air to try to get away from us to get to that dog,” Tim said. “We use their behavior support, we use the Facebook groups to ask for suggestions, and just having that huge support around APA really helps.”

Supported by people all over the world, APA also came to be known for their No-Kill Movement: the goal to decrease the amount of shelter animal killings to zero percent. According to Tim, Storm might not be here today if it wasn’t for APA’s determination.

“He really, from our understanding, hadn’t been in Odessa that long, but they were so full that he would have been euthanized within a few weeks,” Tim said. “There’s just nothing about him that’s bad, I don’t understand. It would have been very sad for a dog like this to have lost his life just because there wasn’t room for him.”

Sharing their dreams, Isacksen and Crane enjoy the comfort of each other as they take a nap on the couch.

APA leadership and staff won’t let anything get in the way of them taking in homeless animals, even if it comes to sleepless nights. Turning away an animal is never considered a choice in their eyes, whether the shelters are full or the animal is in a really bad state.

“There are other shelters around, but I don’t think anybody does the amount of work that APA does,” Tim said. “I just saw a story the other day where they took in 80 dogs and were able to put them on a flight to Florida, to another facility. Other shelters just don’t do that kind of thing. Once they’re at capacity, that’s it. They take care of what they have. APA just goes above and beyond, they’ll work to find places to foster dogs.”

With many volunteers to assist, APA is able to fight until the war is over. Even with all the mini battles they face, Isacksen said they are still able to provide a clean and caring environment. “When you walk into APA and you start to interact with people there or you see the dogs, it’s very clear that it doesn’t feel like a penitentiary. It feels like a halfway home, and I really like that,” Isacksen said. “It just puts me at ease knowing that this place is here to take care of animals, not get rid of them.”

APA has made a huge impact on Austin’s community and has become a role model to other shelters across Texas. We might not be where we are in today’s society if APA hadn’t been advocating and teaching about the dogs in need of help.

“Each individual person and their relationship to their dog, and their knowledge about dogs in general, are the pieces that build the community,” Isacksen said. “Having APA out here educating, providing examples, and providing volunteers to help make each of those building blocks stronger, almost certainly make the community, as a whole, better.”

Initially, Austin had a kill rate of eighty-seven percent. However, over the years, APA has worked hard to get a save rate of ninety-seven percent. APA and their supporting shelters such as Austin Animal Shelter and Emancipet have earned Austin the title of Largest No-Kill City for shelter animals nationwide. APA takes in about four hundred thousand animals a year between the veterinary clinic and the shelter. APA turned the key in the lock, opening up to a better ending for those dogs who had a bumpy beginning.

Emily and Tim Leadingham sit with Storm in a Blue Bonnet patch on a sunny day. Stylish Storm celebrates his birthday with a Texas bowtie, a dashing shiny coat, and a sparkly crown.