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It's come to my attention that nobody really knows what goes on behind the scenes, so I thought this would be an appropriate time to tell our story. No doubt many of you have pets, but how many of you have lost a pet? Did you know that one out of every three pets becomes lost in its lifetime? The concept for Austin Lost Pets actually occurred to me three years ago. I had this small determined cat that wanted to be free. The more determined I was to keep her in the house, the more determined she became to escape into the free open spaces. I’ll never forget the holiday season that my in-laws came to visit. On one of her escape ventures, Bootsy had climbed to the very top of the neighbors’ roof. Of course, she was comfortable and wasn’t coming down to be caged back up in the house. Well, one day Bootsy escaped, and she never came back. We walked the neighborhood and talked to everyone. Then I began to look into the animal control facilities. We live in Pflugerville and the first thing that really irritated me was the fact that I needed to go to 3 different animal control units to find my cat. Believe me, those visits are the most heartbreaking visits that I’ve encountered. Walking among all the cages of lost or homeless animals, just pleading for you to give them a bit of attention. It was really difficult to continue those repeat visits. It was then that I realized that Austin needed a website for lost pets. I also knew that I was NOT going to be the one who created it. After all, it would be WAY TOO MUCH work to do it right. I didn’t know anything about web design and I didn’t want to know. I was an accountant, who had just found the perfect job in computer support. I was set to be a techie and that’s all I wanted to be. Two years later, the opportunity to learn web design came up again and it sounded pretty good. I had never found Bootsy and Austin still had no local lost pet website, so I began learning web design and experimenting by building a local lost pet website. In October 1999, I began my journey to contact all of the local animal control units and rescue groups I possibly could, while working 40 to 45 hours a week at a real job. I could see the need for public education, as well as a picture that kept cropping up in my mind. A pet is only held for 3 to 7 days before being turned over to a rescuer or adopter. That’s a Texas law and one that is very necessary considering the number of animals that are picked up on a routine basis. But all I could picture is someone not finding their dog and the dog being adopted by a loving family, who knew nothing of the owners’ desperate search. Even grimmer still is the thought of a pet being destroyed because an owner had no idea they should be looking for their dog both in Georgetown and the Town Lake Animal Center. During this time, I was reading every pet story the local newspaper could dish out. The more I read, the more I knew that I was moving in the right direction. So I set out to build AustinLostPets.com. My husband urged me to do more research. I began checking all the lost and found sites I could find. All were national, with no focus on any kind of local information. Most were database driven and there was no opportunity to simply browse listings. On the websites that were simply listings, with no search feature, all of the listings were put together, a dog from Alabama would appear under the cat from Texas. Well, that only made me more determined to complete my mission. How hard is it to build a website? You may be asking yourself. Well it depends on what you want to accomplish. I wanted a website that was constantly updated with good information, where anyone could easily find a listing they were looking for. On top of that, I wanted for people to be able to list a pet for up to a year or more at a time. This kind of site has taken many painstaking hours to build and complete and maintain. I began with a website that could accept lost, found and adoption pet listings, as well as giving information on local laws. Once the design was drafted, I began researching the necessary business set up. Then I found interested directors and worked on incorporating a nonprofit corporation. Shortly thereafter, the application for the IRS 501(c)3 nonprofit tax exemption status was filed. I worked diligently to complete the website and then began sending out press releases, all while working a full time job. As soon as the word was out listings began trickling in. I don’t remember what I really expected at that time. All I wanted to do was form a central point, where owners of lost pets could post listings that rescues and animal control officers could consult. I was a bit skeptical at first. I had seen so many animals that had been run over. I felt like many animals would turn up on the side of the road. Well, as the first listings came in I would hold my breath. Update the listings on website for the day and dash off to work. At first, barely anyone knew of the website’s existence. About a week into the press releases, KXAN featured us 3 times in a weekend. The viewers began pouring in and so did the pet listings. I reformat each listing for the website, check spelling, make sure breeds and colors are spelled out correctly. Each listing is then added it to the various pet type listings, so that viewer can simply browse a complete set of listings. Then I would write the listings so that they can be accepted into the handbill. Once a final spell check is complete, I send the listings on to Austin Rescue Discussion web, True Rescue Discussion web and the Austin Pets Alive! Handbill. A print out of the entire listing is then faxed to the various local animal control groups. All of this only costs our viewers the time to enter the listing. As you can imagine, this can be a time consuming project. But I wanted to offer the only complete local lost pet website, that really helped owners find a lost pet. As the listings continued, I discovered that the Lost Short Haired Cats page was taking forever to load. Distressed, I began breaking down larger pages, to make sure viewers can find their information fast. Of course, the search engine will find a pet, but if it were my lost cat, I would look at every single listings, just to be sure that my charcoal gray cat isn't listed as a black cat or something else. I can’t remember how many hours it took to research and add all of the pet listings. There were also numerous hours of reworking the website to make it more viewer friendly. After work at night, I would read and try to respond to all of my e-mail. As suggestions poured in, the site was modified to assist viewers. All though the website is pretty solid, I still look for ways to improve and offer better service. As viewers began tuning in and listing pets, they would also find their pets, through flyers and the newspapers. The listings would be removed in my spare time. The day I received my first e-mail that a pet was found deceased, I cried. I really hadn’t expected to get that involved and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue. But continue, I did. Viewers would send in questions and I would research a question or forward it along to one of my volunteer experts (in the early days). The day finally came when Gizmo was picked up by the Town Lake Animal Center. Gizmo lived in Manor and turned up missing on Thanksgiving Day. Two weeks later he was picked up by an animal control officer in south Austin. Gizmo's owners were not looking at Town Lake for their lost pet, but the rescuers who frequented the center remembered my listing, that I had painstakingly rewritten! The end result was Gizmo’s owners picked him up the day before his owners birthday. I was so thrilled. At last I knew I was really making a difference. I’ve added many features to the website to assist pet owners since that time. The most important is our free lost and found packages. After hours of research, I wrote a complete checklist for finding a lost pet, put together a listing of Austin pet businesses by zip code and street address and made a listing of local animal control units with hours, street addresses and phone numbers. There is even a sample flyer to help with the search (they are the number one method of finding a pet). Today I have over 18 pages of success stories and have listed over 1,400 pets since November 13, 1999. Over 335 of these pets have made it back home. All of this on a very limited budget. Recently, I received a wonderful success story. A woman listed her black lab on the website 7 months ago. Someone found the dog and referred to our older listings. The black lab is now back home with its owner! Though I know we can improve our numbers and our services with public assistance, this project is one I will endeavor to continue throughout the years. I had no idea that one person could really make that much of an impact. With additional support, I would like to see our services expanded throughout the Hill Country. Providing Central Texas pet owners with as much local information as possible. Also, I would like to see additional animal controls added to our listings and more advertising of our website. A very important goal of mine is to offer our website information in Spanish and English. We are a very young, small nonprofit and do not have the budget to meet these goals at the present moment. But as people begin to see how strong our impact really is, I am confident that we will make an even bigger impact in the years to come. Elaine Repella One final thought: THE STARFISH
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