The City of Austin, Tex., went from a 50 percent save rate to saving over 90 percent of the community’s homeless dogs and cats in just two and a half years. How did they do it?

Dr. Ellen Jefferson, veterinarian and executive director of Austin Pets Alive! (APA), spoke at the 2012 Maddie’s® Shelter Medicine Conference at the University of Florida, where she told the extraordinary story of how APA changed the face of sheltering at the open admission city shelter by going after what she calls “the bottom 50 percent.”

Knowing it would not be as simple as just saving larger numbers of the easy-to-save animals, Jefferson and her team examined the specific types of animals being euthanized, and developed targeted shelter medicine, behavior, and adoption programs to save these animals’ lives. Their efforts have made Austin the largest no-kill city in the United States.

In the video of Dr. Jefferson’s presentation, you’ll learn how to:

• Develop a broader perspective on what kinds of programs are necessary to save the most challenging types of animals in open admission shelters
• Adopt out the “unadoptable”
• Leverage the community to save more pets
• Master saving lives with little to no funds

View “Saving the Bottom 50 Percent” below, or on our YouTube channel.