March was a busy month filled with lots of change for me. The biggest change? We adopted a dog! A gentle giant Akita named Kuma. He has been the most wonderful dog and we are so lucky that Austin Pets Alive is around because if they hadn’t pulled him from Town Lake Animal Shelter and agreed to foster him then he would have been put down. Austin Pets Alive has saved hundreds of dogs from Town Lake this way. People may think that only vicious or ugly old unwanted dogs are put down, but no, this gorgeous ~1 year old dog was at town lake for almost a month with no interest and so they gave up on him. Austin Pets Alive had Kuma for less than a week before we found him! We weren’t the only ones who submitted an application for him either. I think this proves enough how reaching out into the community and making the dogs look their best makes a huge difference. They have since convinced City Hall to approve a No-Kill plan for Town Lake. Here’s hoping that more people in Austin find a furry friend to foster or adopt and that the No Kill plan is a huge success!
Rebecca looking stoked about finding Kuma
If you are in ATX looking for a dog or cat or just like seeing cute photos and a well run organization I encourage you to check out the Austin Pets Alive website. They have a great blog and show multiple photos and sometimes videos of the animals they are fostering. They have convinced the local PetsMarts in Austin to no longer carry puppy/kitty mill animals and instead you will find the APA dogs hanging out front meeting people as they walk by and the cats get the nice indoor environment. On the APA’s website they show a schedule of which dog will be out at which location so if you are interested in one you can stop by and meet them with no pressure. This is exactly what we did! After checking their website for several weeks when I spotted Kuma on the listings it was not hard to convince me to go meet him (thanks Sean!) and from then on it was love at first sight and we had to have him.
Shank & Kuma
Now we have a few trainings under our belt with him and he is fitting in nicely and gets along well with the cats and the chickens! At first his large size (~90 lbs) was a bit shocking, but now he seems normal to us and every other dog out there is just tiny.. including his best friend Abby, Sean’s pit bull. These two hit it off right away and love to go on walks together and then share a drink and roll around. Despite Abby being half his size she is able to get him to roll over and pin him down every time. They are too cute.
Abby & Kuma kissing in the bluebonnets
