Pulliam out at animal shelter, Mills in, vaccinations up

It’s been nearly a week since Dorinda Pulliam, the city’s assistant director for animal services, left her post as the head of the Town Lake Animal Shelter to “assist with special projects in other divisions” of the Health and Human Services Department. In that time, there’s been speculation as to whether her leaving had to do with her contentious relationship with the animal rights community or a recent outbreak of distemper at the shelter.

 

According to Pulliam’s boss, David Lurie, the director of the Health and Human Services Department, he was not surprised by Pulliam’s request for reassignment or the timing of that request. “We’ve been talking about it for a year or more, in terms of succession planning and transition,” he told In Fact Daily.

 

Lurie says now is the perfect time for Pulliam to move on from the shelter, now that ground has broken on the future animal shelter at Levander Loop and staff has begun implementing a plan to make Austin a no-kill city. Lurie said, “This allows us to have a new executive in place on the ground when we move into the new facility and as we implement this plan.”

 

In the meantime, former APD Assistant Chief Bruce Mills has been installed to serve as interim director of the city’s animal services.

 

It’s safe to say that some members of the animal advocacy community aren’t sad to see Pulliam go. Many of them felt Pulliam was never onboard with the city’s movement toward becoming no-kill. Animal Advisory Commission Chair Larry Tucker, who often butted heads with Pulliam at city meetings, told In Fact Daily that Pulliam’s reassignment was a “move in the right direction” for the shelter and the city.

 

“It’s good for the animals and for us to have a shelter director who’s in line with the aims of a no-kill city,” he said. “We can accomplish more with somebody new.”

 

Pulliam’s tenure at TLAC was defined in some part by controversy and contention, and her last weeks were no different. Two weeks ago, the Public Health and Human Services Committee held a special called meeting to get to the bottom of a recent outbreak of distemper in the shelter and resulting accusations from animal rights activists, including Tucker, that Pulliam was not providing adequate reports on the methods, timing, and structure of the shelter’s vaccination program. At that meeting, Pulliam assured members of the committee that she her staff had begun implementing a new system that would allow them to show exactly when an animal was checked into the shelter and when that animal received its vaccinations.

 

And things have changed for the better as a result, Lurie said at yesterday’s meeting, both in terms of the number of vaccinations being given and the clarity with which those numbers are being reported. He also said that improving the data-collection system would be one of Mills’ priorities going forward. “We do have a significantly improved reporting system that gives you the date and time of intake and the date and time of vaccinations,” he said.

 

“We can say at this point that we are vaccinating very effectively and very early on in terms of intake,” Lurie said. “We’ve redirected and mobilized some resources at the shelter (to be able to do this).”

 

Asked what these resources were, Lurie told In Fact Daily, “We’ve added some additional temporary veterinary staff. Now we’ll know what we need when we come back to the budget and make considerations for some longer-term investments and commitments. We’ve also changed some of the protocol around the appropriateness of the vaccination age and so forth. We’ve made it a priority and we’re seeing results in terms of the vaccination rates and the timing of the vaccinations.”

 

Lurie said that the Human Resources Department is currently beginning the search for a new shelter director and head of animal services.