Using facebook to save animals at Fort Worth Animal Control (Dallas: homes, live)

[ladyblue09]

Recently I ran across this article about an innovative facebook group, Urgent Animals at Fort Worth Animal Care and Control. It's run by volunteers who are trying to get the word out about animals in imminent danger of being put to sleep at animal control in the hope that someone will adopt them. It seems to be making a difference!
I'm not local but I was impressed by how this effort seems to be making a real difference in Ft Worth and I am hoping to encourage more sharing of urgent animals in my community too. Good job on heading in the right direction, DFW folks.

[ChristieP]

Now if they would just start testing their cats for feline leukemia virus before putting them up for adoption. I will not adopt from anyone without proof of a negative FLV because I do not want to endanger the health of my other cat. Dallas Animal Services does test, and I am willing to make the drive over there to know I am adopting a healthy cat.

[ladyblue09]

I get the impression that this shelter has very, very few resources. The volunteers who run the facebook page have mentioned many times that the animals there do not get any medical care while they are there. Sadly that includes animals who come in with injuries apparently. The rescuers work hard to try to help the sick and injured animals get out of the shelter so they can get help, but there are so many that it is hard for them to help all of them. Many of the animals who are on the euthanasia list every day are being put to sleep because they caught colds basically. It is sad to see animals who have treatable illnesses die - but there are so many and apparently not enough money for them.
Does anyone know more about how the shelter is run?

[loraine87]

There is also a page on there called "Hey, Thats my dog" that helped me find my sisters dog and others as well. It is a pretty great group, but I will be checking this one you mentioned out as well to cross reference. Thank You!

[srgrimes]

I am very upset with the City of Fort Worth for Putting any "Healty" animal down. There are Multiple options available to the city. The City was praised on the Oprah show for creating a No Kill Policy after several months of begging her to use her power to advocate for the animals. There are apparently no policies in place for the Pound vs Humane society! There are at least 17 groups in Texas alone advocating for No-Kill policies around the state. They are relocating the over flow population to increase adopt-ability and searching out Foster homes. It has been proven to work around Austin in their time of need following the Wild Fires that ravaged the area last year. I have been trying hard for three years to assist in the No-Kill endeavor but have run out of funds since Un-employment ran out. Until more People stand up in front of city council this un-necessary killing will continue. I just hope that it is not some child's lost pet that is being destroyed because the city cant take the time to locate a foster home, re-locate the pet to another shelter within the city, or post the new pets found to the city's website of incarcerated animals of the week!

[ladyblue09]

It seems like lately things have been worse than they were before. Right now the people on the facebook group are having a hard time getting dogs out because a lot of the local rescues are full and not many new people are volunteering to foster dogs. It's a very sad situation. I see so many good dogs on their page that would make good pets. If anyone reading this is in a position to be able to foster, please do so! It's desperately needed!
Unfortunately the shelter's list for euthanasia often isn't even finished until late in the day, so in many cases dogs are not even known to be in danger until around 6pm, and the emails asking the dog to be spared need to be in before 7 am the next day! 13 hours is not long enough to network and find homes in many cases!
It's such a waste of life.