Unwanted animals in the Houston area find homes thanks to TikTok and Facebook

People from across the country are helping Harris County Pets find homes for the hundreds of homeless cats and dogs at the animal shelter.

They use platforms like TikTok and Facebook to find, vet and ultimately match potential owners with animals in need. These informal pet networks have removed hundreds of dogs from the shelter’s euthanasia list this year alone and helped stabilize the organization after allegations of mistreatment last year.

“If we look at what changed between last year and this year, the networks played a big role in that,” said Theresa Lukasik, owner of Lucky Tails Rescue and one of the main figures pushing for of a reform at Harris County Pets. . “I’ve literally had adopters come from other states to go to the shelter, adopt the dog and bring it back to the state they live in.”

The figures confirm that these networks have an impact. According to Harris County Veterinary Public Health Director Corey Steele, rescue groups removed 842 animals from Harris County Pets in 2024. He praised the work of volunteers who came to help market the animals to the shelter.

“Any help we receive to amplify the number of pets in our care is extremely helpful in our overpopulation,” Steele said. “We have volunteers who participate in the videos and then share those videos with people on social media to network.”

Over the past year, Lukasik has worked closely with Demitra Stefanoni, a Maryland resident and administrator of the Saving Houston’s Pets Facebook page. Stefanoni, who besides leading the group has no ties to the Houston area, said the situation at Houston animal shelters demands his attention.

“Harris County is like the third world when it comes to animal rescue,” Stefanoni said. “One of the main reasons for this is that there are not many active relief organizations in the area.”

One explanation for the lack of robust rescue groups, Stefanoni says, is that those operating in the area typically focus on shelters that kill more animals. She said organizations like Houston’s BARC get the lion’s share of attention from local rescues, leaving Harris County Pets’ animals to people like her and Lukasik.

BARC is Houston’s equivalent of Harris County Pets and provides animal screening and adoption services within the city limits. In 2023, BARC has euthanized nearly ten times the number of animals killed by the county in the same year. At the same time, BARC took in about 20,000 animals that year, while Harris County Pets accepted about 4,500.

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A native and longtime resident of New England, Stefanoni first learned about the situation at Harris County Pets when she came across the shelter’s Facebook page in 2019. At first, she was simply posting adoption listings from groups from Houston to others from the East. Side.

This strategy, however, could not keep pace with the large number of animals euthanized by Harris County Pets. Before a larger facility was built in 2020, Stefanoni said she was forced to face a narrow window in which she could remove the animal from the slaughter list, whether she found a match or No.

“Harris County was killing every morning and twice on Friday,” she said. “It was pitiful. They would kill before opening. So, if a dog was not saved by six o’clock in the evening, it was dead by morning. »

Public data from 2019 reveals the shelter euthanized nearly a thousand cats and dogs that year, with another 819 missing or dead from other causes. This year, monthly reports from Harris County Pets currently show an average of 21 dogs euthanized per month. That number is up slightly from 2023, but not when you factor in the shelter’s higher admission average of 447 animals each month, compared to 375 in 2023.

Euthanasia is also no longer a daily practice and is limited to two days a week: Fridays and Wednesdays. Animals have a minimum of 30 days in the facility before they can be placed on the euthanasia list.

According to Harris County Pet’s euthanasia policy, rescues and pet networks are notified a total of three times before an animal is killed. Once when they exceed the 30 day mark at the shelter, again 48 hours before euthanasia and in a final red alert notice sent 24 hours before.

“These are the animals we need help with,” Steel said. “Our rescue coordinator emails approved rescues with animals in need of rescue.”

It was these emails that spurred people like Stefanoni into action. With nearly 1,500 miles, two time zones, and several layers of bureaucracy between her and the dogs she was trying to save, the conditions Stefanoni worked under seemed better suited to a military operation than a simple adoption program.

Soon, however, a loosely organized coalition of individuals from across the United States joined the Maryland native in her quest to find homes for the county’s many abandoned animals.

“You need different social media platforms to showcase dogs, because a larger audience brings more looks and more chances of adoption,” Stefanoni said. “We have a girl in South Carolina who helps us there. We have people in Colorado, Washington and all over the United States finding dog homes in Houston.

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Stefanoni’s network is just the first step in the adoption process. She finds eligible housing and ensures applicants are capable of providing high-quality care. She says this process can be as superficial as checking their social media pages, or as in-depth as a criminal background check. If all goes well, Lukasik will organize pick-up and transport.

Lukasik said that’s where she often encounters obstacles, like boating regulations that vary from state to state.

States often prohibit the transfer of animals that are not spayed or neutered, as well as those carrying treatable diseases.

“There was one I was trying to adopt through Washington, but the dog was heartworm positive,” Lukasik said. “It’s illegal to transport a dog with heartworm to Washington, so we had to take her away and she ended up not being adopted.”

Once her rescue takes custody of an animal, she cannot return it. This means that excessive delays can sometimes result in a potential match being abandoned, leaving Lukasik to coordinate another adoption.

Lukasik and Stefanoni agreed that Harris County Pets has made great strides in improving its operations. Long-awaited political changes have finally been implemented

“In 2023, we were receiving animals that had lost weight. Many were getting sick and some seemed to be starving to death,” Lukasik said. “Today they look much healthier. The difference is that they don’t stay at the shelter for months and months.”