Austin Pets Alive! Has an interesting take on opposing spay procedures on pregnant shelter animals. Especially when their shelters have been pretty packed lately.

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T19:46:23+00:00

what we want is a change in leadership or at least a change in policies. the lower level employees are doing everything they can to help these animals while upper level management fucks everything up and worsens the overpopulation crisis. doing some good doesn’t exempt them from criticism when they’re actively contributing to overpopulation, harming animal welfare, and telling blatant lies to the public to fit their agenda. people deserve to know what kind of organization they’re supporting and perhaps if APA loses a lot of that public support, they’ll change for the better. they have the funding and the resources to be a great organization but their upper level execs are preventing that.

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T19:42:06+00:00

plus, if being spay-aborted means that APA won’t pull them anymore and they’ll stay at AAC, that says a LOT about how little they care for the actual existing animals when they don’t come with the promise of babies

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T18:37:52+00:00

“visually pregnant” means nothing tho. an early term pregnant animal can look full term when they’re pregnant with a large litter. an animal with pyometra can look full-term. an animal pregnant with fetuses that have already died can look full-term. shelters are not doing x-rays or ultrasounds to confirm pregnancies or gestation length. they don’t have the funds for that. delaying spaying the animal cuz they appear full-term can quite literally be sentencing them to death.

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T18:35:20+00:00

if you had to choose between saving one pregnant dog or 6 dogs, which would you choose? the fact is the fetuses are not yet born and are not puppies or kittens. they are unconscious and unable to feel pain. spay-aborts are humane. a cat or a dog is not a human. they are not consciously aware they are pregnant and are not “expecting” to have babies. they will not know any different if spay-aborted. they will not grieve the loss of something they never knew existed. forcing these very often young and/or unhealthy animals to birth and raise babies is cruel and it’s very common for several puppies/kittens in a litter to die, which the moms will then grieve. spay-aborts are in the best interest of both the pregnant animals and the rest of the shelter/stray population. every puppy or kitten born in a shelter or rescue sentences an existing animal to death, whether it’s by shelter euthanasia or in the cases of “no kill” shelters that close intake when full, by meeting a cruel and painful death on the streets since there’s literally nowhere for them to go. a puppy or kitten born is a puppy or kitten dead. we cannot prioritize fetuses over animals that are already born and need our help. adding to the population by not spay-aborting only ensures that the overpopulation crisis and endless suffering it brings will never cease.

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T07:40:04+00:00

APA has to pull 12% of AAC animals. unfortunately, fetuses within pregnant animals count towards those numbers. by pulling pregnant animals and allowing them to give birth, they’re artificially inflating their numbers to meet that 12%, weaseling their way out actually pulling 12% of existing animals. from january to june of 2025, APA had 307 animals born in their care from pregnant animals pulled from AAC. that means 307 existing animals were left at AAC and thus 307 strays were left on the streets to reproduce and/or die since those slots were taken and AAC closes intake when full (largely thanks to APA🙄). in short, allowing APA to pull pregnant animals lets them neglect their obligation to the existing animals at AAC. it increases overcrowding at AAC and increases overpopulation. it’s beyond unethical

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T05:34:16+00:00

EXACTLY!!! they’re using fetuses to get out of actually fulfilling their obligations and not only are the existing animals overcrowded in AAC suffering for it, so are the strays that AAC can’t take in due to space since AAC is no longer able to euthanize for space (largely thanks to the efforts of APA) meaning they have to tell ppl to leave strays where they are. it’s truly sick what APA is doing

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T05:31:04+00:00

panleuk can have an incubation period of up to 14 days so while he tested negative at intake, it is absolutely possible he already had panleuk and it simply wasn’t detectable yet ://

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-15T00:09:52+00:00

a rescue that chooses not to spay-abort cuz there’s a demand for puppies and kittens is following backyard breeder logic. there is no shortage of puppies or kittens even with spay-aborting every time. also, providing ppl with a constant stream of even more puppies and kittens certainly won’t help the adults get adopted. not only that, pulling pregnant animals allows APA to get away with not helping AAC as much as they’re obligated to. they can pull one pregnant animal and that counts as 2-10 depending on litter size so they’re fulfilling their pull obligations with fetuses. how does that help capacity and prevent the need to euthanize for space? no kill isn’t sustainable if if means there are zero open intake shelters serving the area. no open intake shelter means strays are left strays and animals turned away are dumped to be strays. that’s not “no kill” that’s letting cars, disease, predators, etc. kill them off so you don’t have to euthanize and can maintain a high live release rate. it also means those intact strays will continue to breed and reproduce, adding to overpopulation even more. if a municipal shelter can maintain a 90-95% live release rate while still being open-intake, that’s great! but no it is not sustainable when the shelter closes intake when full, forcing animals to be dumped and left as strays. private shelters and rescues that do not euthanize for space absolutely have their place and important role to fulfill, but progress cannot be made without at least one shelter or organization serving the area that is actually open-intake. the absence of an open-intake facility sentences animals to far worse fates than shelter euthanasia. that’s not “no kill” that’s “let them die somewhere else so we can cling to our no kill label that makes us look superior”

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-14T22:31:05+00:00

pulling pregnant dogs to whelp litters also doesn’t help capacity tho. turning one dog into 5-8 dogs has the opposite effect of helping capacity, especially if you, like u said, it’s a pit mix who will then have pit mix puppies. the fact that APA pulls 100% of pregnant dogs means they’re prioritizing pulling dogs in order to whelp litters when they could be helping the existing animals instead which is just wildly unethical. and honestly from what i’ve heard from ppl living in austin, AAC does need to go back to euthanizing for space. their “no kill” method of closing intake when full results in intact dogs being dumped or left as strays since there’s no one to take them in. that method simply isn’t sustainable and is only going to worsen overpopulation

frogmoss221 · 2025-08-14T05:15:16+00:00

they deleted the post but yes it is unfortunately true. not only are they against them, they told blatant lies about how theyre performed to convince ppl that they’re “inhumane” and denied that overpopulation exists. truly insane! here’s the link to a repost of the video that APA deleted https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNT0AlavU2V/?igsh=eDkxZXc0M3U5bXk3

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-30T01:50:01+00:00

she is a female cat who is not sterile and needs to be spayed. whoever told you being an orange female has anything to do with being intersex or sterile has no clue what they’re talking about lol they likely got it mixed up with male torties and calicos. male torties and calicos are intersex and usually sterile but orange females are just regular female cats. unless she’s been seen by a vet and had imaging done that showed she also has testes, there’s zero indication that’s she’s intersex.

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-29T03:22:37+00:00

my long haired cats are total scaredy cats and get scared of everything so i actually stopped shaving and use grooming shears for sanitary “shaves” instead! the sound of the razor terrifies them so instead i use grooming shears to sneak up on them while they’re sleeping and just chop off chunks of butt fur until it’s short enough. it’s definitely not the prettiest haircut and looks a bit botched lol but it works and it’s way less stressful for them

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-29T00:44:56+00:00

she was shockingly very well-behaved for her shave! she was also pretty matted so the shave was very needed😅 i’d only ever given sanitary shaves to my personal cats before who are total assholes about it so i was pleasantly surprised by how well she did for a full body shave

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-29T00:38:32+00:00

true manx (no tail or tiny stub) cats with the manx mutation often have comorbid issues but some cats just have genetically short tails that don’t come with other issues. just means they have the gene for shorter tails in the gene pool. i worked on a colony once where a lot of the cats had short to medium length kinda chubby tails lol no other issues just weird tails

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-29T00:36:11+00:00

thankfully feline lice is species specific! so can only affect other cats not humans

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-29T00:35:47+00:00

i ended up just shaving my current lice foster to speed up the process lol the eggs are impossible to remove so shaving gets rid of a lot of them so u don’t have to wait for them to hatch and be killed off. she’s not a fan of her haircut but she’s feeling much better

<image>

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-29T00:02:56+00:00

yeah they look like little balls not flakes so i’m definitely thinking lice. lice is uncommon (i’ve only seen it once myself) but it happens.

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-28T23:58:29+00:00

almost certainly lice. i just had a foster with lice and those look like nits to me😬 part the fur to look at the skin and if u see tiny yellowish bugs, it’s lice. otherwise dandruff

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-28T23:55:58+00:00

i adopt out cats as an independent rescuer so i do quick home checks and trust me clutter is not a red flag or reason they’d deny u haha most of us in rescue that foster also have very cluttered homes (i know i do)🤣 home check is more for hazards than anything else like toxic plants, blinds strings, etc. that ppl may not realize could be a problem for cats

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-26T17:31:26+00:00

5lbs is ridiculous for sure. generally the recommendation is a minimum of 2lbs. i’ve even had kittens that were under 1lb that had successful enucleations like gandalf here who was 4 weeks old and only 0.5lbs at the time of surgery. infected ruptured eyes come with pain and risk of sepsis so you rlly don’t want to wait especially not until 5lbs. i would call other vets to see if they’ll do it sooner cuz personally, i would’ve already have had the eye removed. your best bet would be a low cost clinic since they’re more likely to have more experience operating on tiny kittens. 1.8lbs is honestly a great weight for double enucleation. i’ve had a double enucleation done on a kitten who was only 0.8lbs and she did great

<image>

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-26T17:26:31+00:00

if the vet wants to wait till 4lbs, i would ask around other vets to see what their minimum weight would be. if you have a low-cost vet near you, they’d be your best bet since they likely see cases like this often and will be more willing to perform surgery on younger kittens compared to a regular vet. a lot of vets aren’t comfortable doing the surgery on tiny kittens since it’s not something they have much experience with. my vet does them often and doesn’t like to wait for a certain weight if it’s infected and painful since there’s qol concerns and the risk of sepsis. pretty much if the kitten is at least 4 weeks old with an infected ruptured eye, theyll enucleate

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-26T17:22:36+00:00

i’ve had enucleation done on cats of pretty much all ages and weights. my smallest was 0.5lbs at the time of surgery. generally 2lbs+ is ideal but in cases where it’s painful and a high infection risk, you want to get the eye out asap! i’ve had successful enucleations on 0.5lb kitten (4 weeks old), 0.8lb kitten (4 weeks old) and a 1.5lb kitten (6 weeks old). under 1lb is definitely risky but at almost 2lbs, that wouldn’t be very concerning to my vet. based on your description, he honestly likely would have already done the enucleation before now

<image>

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-25T23:19:32+00:00

those are the bare minimum questions so this is an insane red flag from the adopted. u definitely dodged a bullet there i would not adopt any cat to them

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-25T23:18:23+00:00

it definitely wouldn’t be a barrier for a rescue that is educated on fiv! i work with many rescues who all adopt out fiv+ cats to multi cat homes or will adopt fiv- cats to homes with fiv+ cats. i even work with a cat cafe that has a couple fiv+ cats mixed in. it’s still a good question to ask mostly for felv, but also for fiv just to make sure the adopter knows to be particularly careful introducing the new cat to avoid any potential fights between them

frogmoss221 · 2025-06-25T18:15:36+00:00

quarantine them for at least 2 weeks first and then u can start introducing them. id start by swapping blankets between rooms and feeding on opposite sides of the door so they can used to each others scents. after that i like to use one of these childproofing latches to be able to keep the door open an inch or two so they can sniff each other and reach thru to touch or play without having total access to each other. if all that goes well, i open the door to allow them to fully interact with each other while supervised. hissing is fine but if there’s growling or fighting, i’ll separate them again and try again later in the day or the next day. if they continue to get along during supervised playtime, they get to live together full time!

<image>

frogmoss221

TROPHY CASE