Austin shelter sees decrease in lost pets over holiday

There was good news from the Austin Animal Center yesterday. The city’s Animal Services Office reported that the recent Fourth of July weekend saw a “major drop” in intakes of lost and stray pets when compared to last year. In fact, intakes were down about 25 percent, from more than 100 to about 80. In a statement, Chief Animal Services Officer Tawny Hammond said, “For more than four years we have been aggressively reminding and asking pet owners to properly tag and microchip their pets. … We offer free tags and microchips to any pet owner in Travis County as well as properly tagging adopted pets from our shelter. … This is just one of the programs that seems to be successfully working for our community to keep pets safe.” In addition to microchipping, city staff attributes the drop in lost pets to public service announcements, social media campaigns, the lost pet Twitter feed and the shelter’s Found Pet Map.